‘I am at a loss for words as to how this got out’: ‘A Minecraft Movie’ complete unfinished workprint leaks online
Warner Bros.’ worst nightmare just came true. Despite terrible word-of-mouth, A Minecraft Movie was shaping up to be a sizable hit, drawing in the legions of young fans of the world-conquering video game. The movie opens wide today, but somehow the entire thing is now online, albeit in hilariously unfinished form.
What’s being widely shared across social media and file-sharing sites appears to be a “workprint” of the movie, i.e., something used internally at the studio to preview the movie before it’s shown to the public. A glance at the clips available indicates the VFX looks about 70-80% complete, meaning it’s clear what’s supposed to be on screen, though in very rough form.
As pretty much all the backgrounds are CGI, this means some very wonky compositing of real-life actors into the scenes. In many ways, this is a whole aesthetic of its own, and some people are enjoying this amateurish take much more than the polished final product currently on screens:
This would unironically be so much better than the photo realism slop they actually put out
— ? ?Titanic The Thin White Duke?? (@AlphaMageSos) April 4, 2025
Crazy thing, this actually looks more bearable to look at than the finished film. XD
— MutaScale220 (@MutaScale13) April 4, 2025
I honestly love this its so cool tbh
— AnActualGarnish (@AnActualGarnish) April 4, 2025
Those with long memories will know this also happened to 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine. That leaked a full month before release with similarly unfinished effects, with Fox estimating 15 million people illegally watched it, likely having a serious impact on the box office. Incidentally, after much investigation, it was eventually revealed that this leak originated in a copy made for Rupert Murdoch himself.
Warner Bros. will be absolutely furious about this and are no doubt narrowing their eyes at the many effects houses that worked on the movie to figure out who’s responsible for putting this online:
Yeah my reaction's the first sentence there. How did this get out there?
— Tophat mudkip (Allister) (@Sapphiremud4508) April 4, 2025
It could be a disgruntled employee out to intentionally sabotage the movie, it could be a hacker who gained access, or it could simply be someone chasing clout. It remains to be seen whether this will curtail A Minecraft Movie‘s box office performance, though they should watch out. In the case of X-Men: Origins the person who originally uploaded the copy was tracked down, arrested, and sentenced to a year in federal prison.
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