Here’s Why Rob McElhenney May Be Credited for Writing the ‘Minecraft’ Movie
The first trailer for A Minecraft Movie dropped today, giving parents everywhere a little taste of the two-hour migraine they’ll assuredly be suffering from in 2025.
While the real star is clearly the ceaseless onslaught of candy-colored CGI slop, some humans were hired to hang around in front of a green screen, including Peacemaker’s Danielle Brooks, What We Do in the Shadows’ Matt Berry, Jennifer Coolidge and Jack Black, as a guy named “Steve” who may as well have just been named “Jack Black.”
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Also, Jason Momoa is in it, and he has bangs now? How is his haircut the oddest part of a movie that features pixelated zombies?
While we know that it was directed by Jared Hess of Napoleon Dynamite fame, it’s less clear who will be credited for writing the script, which has been in development for at least 10 years now. As critic Drew McWeeny pointed out on social media, the screenplay has been worked on by around 40 different writers. And the studio hasn’t released the screenwriting credits yet, likely because they will have to be decided on in WGA arbitration.
Right now, IMDb credits just six people for writing A Minecraft Movie, and one of them is this guy:
Yup, Rob McElhenney very well could end up being credited for writing the Minecraft movie. Why? Well, as tough as it sometimes is to recall what happened in 2015, that was when the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star (who played the game with his children) was tapped to helm the project, taking over from director Shawn Levy.
After McElhenney’s Minecraft movie fell through, he outlined the situation on Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast. “I’m comfortable talking about it, because fuck them, at this point,” McElhenney began before running down his pitch. “I thought one of the greatest assets of Minecraft is that it didn’t have a fixed narrative, that it was an open-world experience,” McElhenney explained. “And that all you were essentially given were the building blocks to do what you want.”
The core of McElhenney’s Minecraft story was apparently about agency, a theme that could resonate with both children and adults. “Kids mostly feel powerless; all day long they’re being told what to do, how to dress, do your homework, go to bed. I felt like that could extend to other people,” McElhenney revealed. “I think everybody feels marginalized to an extent. Your boss is telling you what to do all day long, or your spouse is. You just feel like you don’t have this sense of agency over your own life. The game gave you that, and I thought that’s a really profound experience.”
Unfortunately, studio leadership changed hands, and McElhenney’s $150 million Minecraft “slowly died on the vine.”
Perhaps not coincidentally, Season Three of McElhenney’s Mythic Quest featured a storyline about a Hollywood adaptation of the titular video game, and it, too, ends up falling through.
Since McElhenney had a thoughtful, more nuanced take on the material, perhaps it would be for the best if his name doesn’t appear on the finished film, which looks like a porn parody of a pop-up ad for an iPhone app.
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