A Minecraft Movie has stuck gold in its theatrical debut, but how long can fans expect before the new Warner Bros. comedy to star leaving theaters?
Based on the beloved video game franchise of the same name, Minecraft brings the beloved voxel-based gaming world to the big screen for the first time.
In a Jumanji-esque 'sucked into the game' adventure, The Minecraft Movie follows Jack Black's Steve as he guides a batch of new arrivals in the colorful cubic wonderland who are all trying to get back to the real world.
How Long Will A Minecraft Movie Stay in Theaters?
While A Minecraft Movie has only just started its theatrical journey, questions about how long the movie will stay in theaters will indeed begin to arise.
The latest big-screen comedy from Jack Black and Nacho Libre filmmaker Jared Hess has proven to be a massive hit. Fans have been eating up this first cinematic dip into the beloved video game world, with cheers being commonplace in any run-of-the-mill showing of the film (read more about why people are clapping in The Minecraft Movie here).
However, all good things must come to an end, and even Minecraft will eventually leave theaters as all box office smashes eventually do.
Coming off the movie's opening week, it is still playing in over 4200 theaters worldwide (via Box Office Mojo). That number will slowly trickle ever-downward as the weeks go by and newer, more pressing releases begin to vie for screen real estate.
However, given how Minecraft's opening weekend went, fans can rest assured that the film's theater exit date is unlikely to come anytime soon.
Typically, theatrical releases on the scale of Minecraft start to decrease in the total number of theaters playing roughly three weeks after their initial debut.
For comparison, Universal's Wicked saw an initial drop in theaters playing the movie three weeks after its November 2024 theatrical debut. However, fans could still find the movie playing on some screens well into 2025 (up to 16 weeks after its first theatrical release in some markets).
After four weeks, a similarly viral blockbuster, Despicable Me 4, dropped its total theaters by over 800, with its theatrical run lasting over 14 weeks. But even that film did not perform to the level of Minecraft in its opening weekend.
To look at a couple of recent Warner Bros. movies, last year's Twisters opened in over 4100 theaters. Around 150 dropped the film after three weeks, and another 350 after four. It would then last in theaters for 12 weeks.
2024's Furiosa might end up being the exact opposite of what will happen to Minecraft, as it opened in 3804 theaters worldwide, with nearly a quarter of those dropping the movie after less than a month. Then, just four weeks after that (and a paltry box office total of $174 million), the Mad Max spin-off rounded out its theatrical run after only seven weeks on the big screen.
So, using those films as comparables for The Minecraft Movie, one can expect the film to start to leave some theaters sometime in late April before it eventually leaves theaters entirely by the summer.
One major factor that could change this is that Minecraft has outperformed just about anything else in the market over the last few years. The movie defied its middling reviews and lackluster box-office projections, earning a stellar $163 million domestically (and $313.7 million globally) in its opening weekend.
If the movie can carry this viral momentum beyond its first weekend at theaters, a theatrical run equating to or even eclipsing the 16-week mark of last year's Wicked.
When Will Minecraft Start Streaming?
As The Minecraft Movie begins to leave theaters, that will not stop fans from their continued 'yearning for the mines,' leaving the film's eventual streaming release as a hot topic among its fans.
Like prior Warner Bros. releases, Minecraft's post-theatrical journey will go from the big screen to digital and then to streaming. Typically, Warner Bros. movies have come to digital (or PVOD) storefronts roughly one month after they have come to theaters.
This most recently happened for the studio, with Furiosa and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice coming to PVOD just over 30 days after their initial big-screen debut. If Minecraft were to follow suit, a digital release sometime in early May would make sense.
This could be pushed depending on The Minecraft Movie's continued box office momentum; however, financial success has rarely affected Warner Bros. and its film's digital release plans.
Where the box office total could move things down the line is A Minecraft Movie's streaming release projections.
Before it finally hit the big screen, insiders commonly predicted that Minecraft would arrive on the Warner-owned Max streaming service between 90 and 120 days after its April 4, 2025, release date.
Now, given how well the movie has performed (and looks like it will continue to perform), it would not be surprising if that potential streaming window is kicked down the road even further.
A Minecraft Movie's striking box office gold could push its theatrical-to-streaming window away from titles like Furiosa and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and closer to something like Greta Gerwig's box office smash Barbie.
Barbie took 147 days to eventually come to streaming, meaning that if Warner Bros. uses a similar post-release plan for Minecraft, one can expect it to arrive on Max anywhere from late August to early September 2025.
