Minecraft movie in the works at Warner Bros.
Markus "Notch" Persson, creator of the beloved indie sandbox sensation, reveals on Twitter that Warner Bros. and his studio Mojang are bringing Minecraft to the big screen.
Following the massive success of "The Lego Movie," it sounds like block-based blockbusters -- a pun no one could possibly refrain from using -- are a sure-fire recipe for Hollywood success. Up next: the Minecraft movie.
Dropping a bombshell on Twitter in the form of a sneaky 128-character admission, Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson revealed that he and Mojang, the studio the 34-year-old Swedish developer formed to manage the title and its expansion, are working with Warner Bros. Pictures to develop a film around the game.
Someone is trying leak the fact that we're working with Warner Brothers on a potential Minecraft Movie. I wanted to be the leak!
— Markus Persson (@notch) February 27, 2014Persson has already confirmed that the tweet is no joke. "It's for real. I think every part of that tweet was real, including me wanting to be the one to spill the news about a potential movie," he told Polygon via e-mail. "It would be nice to tell people when it's 100 percent solid rather than to leak it before it's completely final, but our hands were a bit tied and rushed here."
The studio acquired the rights from Mojang, Deadline reported Thursday, and the project is already garnering huge interest from writers and directors. Warner Bros. intends on making a live-action film, and has already signed up Roy Lee, the mastermind producer behind "The Lego Movie," to tackle the project through his production company Vertigo Entertainment.
Since its release in 2011, Minecraft has become one of the most astonishing success stories in gaming history. Just yesterday, Persson announced on Twitter that the original PC version of Minecraft has reached 100 million users, with 14.3 million of them being paid accounts. Not too shabby, especially when you consider that Minecraft for the Xbox 360 and Minecraft: Pocket Edition for iOS and Android have each sold more than 10 million copies, while more than 1 million copies have been downloaded on the PlayStation 3 since that version's December 2013 release.
And the Minecraft train is not slowing down. Beyond the prospective live-action film, Mojang hopes to put out Minecraft for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita, with titles currently in development.