On Thursday, May 30, 2024, Minecraft celebrated its 15th anniversary with a huge announcement: Their developer, Mojang Studios, will team up with Netflix to create an all-new CG-animated TV series based on Minecraft, the best-selling game of all time!
This announcement comes hot on the heels of the news of an upcoming Minecraft movie, which premieres in theaters on April 4, 2025. That film will star Jack Black as Steve, one of the nine default character player skins and the first character who appears when Minecraft begins. Incidentally, this is Black’s second turn as a video game character, having previously starred as Bowser in The Super Mario Brothers Movie.
Other stars include Jason Momoa and Danielle Brookes. Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite; Nacho Libre) will direct. Shooting in New Zealand began in May 2024. No further information about the creative team has been revealed yet, but we will keep you updated as more details emerge.
An all-new Netflix animated series
Swedish video game developer Markus “Notch” Persson invented Minecraft in 2009. Jens Bergenstein of Mojang Studios later took over development in 2011, when the game’s reach started growing. Despite its very basic design, it was an instant hit with gamers of all ages. In the past fifteen years it has become the best-selling video game in history with over 300 million copies sold. An estimated 140 million people log in to play the game every month.
The game itself is a “sandbox game” in which players use blocks to build anything their imagination can conjure. Players can also interact with each other and form communities, one of the game’s hallmarks, as well as tend to animals and other creatures. Since there’s no plot to the game whatsoever, it’s unclear what the Netflix animated series will be about, but the streamer promises to “feature an original story with new characters that shows the Minecraft world in a new light.”
The Canadian media, animation studio, and production company Wildbrain will animate the new Minecraft Netflix show. This isn’t their first time bringing video games to animated life. Previous projects in that space include Ninjago: Dragons Rising, Carmen Sandiego, and Sonic Prime.
With this series, Minecraft becomes the latest game to be adapted for the small screen, joining the ranks of other recent games-turned-television offerings like The Last of Us (HBO), The Witcher and Resident Evil (Netflix), and Fallout (Amazon).
This series has the potential to be epic … or awful. Only time will tell!
Published: May 30, 2024 12:45 pm