By Ben Fritz

"A Minecraft Movie" opened to an estimated $301 million worldwide, delivering a much-needed hit to Hollywood after a dismal start to the year at the box office.

The Warner Bros. Discovery movie based on a Microsoft videogame grossed $157 million in the U.S. and Canada, the strongest domestic opening of the year and the biggest since Marvel's "Deadpool & Wolverine" last July. "Minecraft" pulled in another $144 million overseas.

The adaptation of the globally popular videogame topped expectations and is the latest proof that well-known intellectual property makes it much easier to draw audiences to theaters.

The context

The first three months of 2025 have been a disaster for the movie industry, with box office disappointments including "Snow White," "Mickey 17," "Captain America: Brave New World," "Novocaine" and "The Alto Knights."

The total domestic box office in that period was $1.42 billion, down 12% from last year and 41% from 2019, the last year unaffected by the pandemic and 2023's Hollywood labor strikes.

The first three months of the year "could not have been any worse for us, " Bill Barstow, chief executive of Main Street Theatres, a small chain of cinemas based in Nebraska, said at the CinemaCon industry convention in Las Vegas last week. Many theater owners were buzzing at CinemaCon about "Minecraft's" potential to break out based on advance ticket sales.

Warner Bros. Discovery's film business has been under growing pressure with two of this year's biggest flops, "Mickey 17" and "Alto Knights," and arguably the biggest box office disaster of 2024 in "Joker: Folie à Deux." Studio chiefs Pam Abdy and Mike De Luca have been spending large sums on risky projects at a time when the rest of their company is under pressure to cut costs.

"Minecraft" was in development at Warner Bros. for several years before Abdy and De Luca took over in 2022, but they oversaw its production. Its success is a shot in the arm for the company. The film is likely to be quite profitable for Warner and its financing partner, Legendary Pictures, and to spawn sequels.

The stakes

"Minecraft" is likely to remain No. 1 at the box office for a few weeks. The biggest coming films in April are Disney's "The Amateur," a thriller based on a little known book, and Warner's "Sinners," an original horror movie set in the early days of blues music starring Michael B. Jordan. "Sinners" is one of Abdy and De Luca's risker bets of the year.

Many in Hollywood are hoping the summer will make up for the rough first several months of the year, with potential hits including new entries in the Mission: Impossible and Jurassic World series and a live-action remake of "Lilo & Stitch." Hollywood's summer-movie season kicks off the first weekend of May with a new Marvel movie, "Thunderbolts."

Write to Ben Fritz at ben.fritz@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 06, 2025 17:18 ET (21:18 GMT)

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