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When filmmaker Jared Hess got interested in making a movie based on the open-ended video game “Minecraft,” there was a major stumbling block: “There’s no story to the game.” “Everybody that plays it brings their own unique story and narrative when they play it,” Hess said in a phone interview. “Like, my daughter, when she plays, she has a really complex story about this hotel for wolves that she built.
So it presented a fun opportunity to create this epic, ridiculous quest movie with a bunch of unlikely heroes.” Hess is now set to unleash “A Minecraft Movie” onto the world, with the U.S.
release date this Friday. It’s the first big-budget franchise movie for Hess, a Brigham Young University alum and Salt Lake City resident best known for small independent films — notably, his 2004 debut, “Napoleon Dynamite.” (Warner Bros.
Pictures) Henry (Sebastian Hansen) discovers how things work in the Overworld, in a scene from "A Minecraft Movie." Making “A Minecraft Movie” has been a five-year journey, through a pandemic, an actors’ strike, and more than a year living in New Zealand — where Hess shot the movie and then worked with Weta FX, the digital effects company that brought the movie’s block-shaped creations to life. It’s also been a challenge to take Mojang Studios’ property, the best-selling video game of all time — the first to top 300 million copies sold — and turn it into a film that will satisfy the game’s fans and newcomers alike.
“Everybody involved — myself, the producers, our design team — we just brought everything we loved about the game,” Hess said. “It’s such a personal experience when you play, and no two players play it the same way. Everybody has a different, unique relationship with it.
” (Kristy Griffin | Warner Bros. Pictures) Director Jared Hess, left, talks with actor Danielle Brooks on the set of "A Minecraft Movie." Creating the ‘Overworld’ The movie had been in development for a while when Hess came on board in early 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic started.
With production delayed across the industry, Hess and his collaborators had time to hone the script. Hess brought on screenwriters Chris Bowman and Hubbel Palmer, friends from film school at BYU. They worked on Hess’ 2015 heist comedy “Masterminds,” and co-wrote “Ninety-Five Senses,” the animated short Hess and his wife, Jerusha, directed — which earned the Hesses an Academy Award nomination .
“We have such a shorthand, having collaborated before,” Hess said. (Bowman and Palmer are two of the six credited screenwriters on “A Minecraft Movie.” Hess also singled out co-writer Chris Galletta, who he said was “amazing.
”) In creating characters to live in the “Overworld,” the block-built universe of “Minecraft,” the first place to start was the game’s main avatar, known as Steve. In the game, Steve doesn’t have a backstory — the player can customize him to match their own whims — so Hess and his writers had to figure out a way to depict him in a movie. (Warner Bros.
Pictures) A Creeper, one of the iconic creatures of the Overworld, in a scene from "A Minecraft Movie." For the role of Steve, Hess brought in another friend and collaborator: Jack Black, who starred in Hess’ second movie, the Mexican wrestling comedy “Nacho Libre.” “There’s nobody better on Earth to play Steve than Jack Black,” Hess said.
“He’s a big kid at heart, and he’s so creative. Also, he’s a big gamer — he’s just obsessed with the game and the look.” It’s been 19 years since Hess and Black worked on “Nacho Libre,” and “he’s the same, other than he’s a dad now,” Hess said.
“Part of his relationship with his kids, and one of the fun things they do as a family, is play video games.” The story that gets viewers to Steve and the Overworld starts in our world — specifically, Chuglass, Idaho, “the potato chip capital of the world.” Hess said that when he was scouting locations, he sent photos to his brother back home.
“[My brother asked,] ‘Where in Idaho are you right now?’ I’m, like, ‘Dude, I’m in New Zealand,’” Hess said. That’s where 20-something Natalie (Emma Myers) and her high school-aged brother, Henry (Sebastian Hansen), relocate after their mother’s untimely death. They find a house thanks to a friendly real-estate agent, Dawn (Danielle Brooks, from “The Color Purple”), who has a side hustle running a mobile petting zoo.
While Henry goes to school, Natalie gets a job in viral marketing at the town’s potato-chip factory. Henry is nerdy, and something of an outcast at his new school. He seeks refuge in a video game store, and gets life advice from the store’s owner: The 1989 world champion video gamer Garett “The Garbage Man” Garrison (Jason Momoa).
Through a series of strange events, Natalie, Henry, Garett and Dawn end up being sucked into a portal to the Overworld. They meet Steve, try to figure out the physics of the place, and tangle with “Piglins,” a species of cannibalistic pig-like warriors seeking gold for their queen, Malgrosa (voiced by the New Zealand actor Rachel House). (Warner Bros.
Pictures) Dennis, a wolf, howls at a square moon in Overworld, in a scene from "A Minecraft Movie." Jason Momoa, ‘a nerd at heart’ The biggest surprise in the cast is Momoa, an action superstar (“Aquaman,” “Fast X”) who here gives his first starring performance in a full-on comedy. Hess has been a fan of Momoa since “Game of Thrones” and was thrilled to get him for this movie.
“We’re the same age, we share a lot of the same references,” Hess said. “He may be the biggest hunk on the planet, but he is such a nerd at heart.” “.
.. And, look, we’ve seen him kick butt in every movie he’s ever done — and it was, like, ‘This would be so fun to see Jason Momoa get his butt kicked through most of the movie.
’ And he was totally game.” (Warner Bros. Pictures) Rivals-turned-friends Steve (Jack Black, left) and Garrett (Jason Momoa, right) form a bond while Dawn (Danielle Brooks) looks on, in a scene from "A Minecraft Movie.
" Momoa and Black had never worked together, Hess said, “but they definitely had secret man-crushes on each other from afar. ..
. When they got together, it was just a total love fest, and that silly bromance is what we try to keep alive in the film.” Hess acknowledges that there are similarities between Garett — a one-time local hero reliving his past glories — and Uncle Rico in “Napoleon Dynamite.
” “I think all of us have a little Uncle Rico in us,” Hess said. “We all look back at our prime years and long to go back.” Another familiar sight from “Napoleon Dynamite” seen in “A Minecraft Movie”: Tater tots.
“I’ve always wanted to see tater tots used as a weapon, as a projectile,” Hess said. “They come in very useful.” Visual effects and Easter eggs (Warner Bros.
Pictures) A panda family in the Overworld, in a scene from "A Minecraft Movie." Once the cast shot their scenes, followed by two weeks of motion-capture work with the stunt team, Hess then pivoted to working with the Weta FX team to create the boxy creatures and landscapes of the Overworld. Those scenes allowed Hess to inject more humor into the film, and also find shorthand ways to explain how the game universe works.
A great example is a quick scene with two pandas. A boy panda meets a girl panda. The boy panda gives the girl panda a piece of bamboo.
Then, out of nowhere, a baby panda appears. Scenes like that, Hess said, are “Easter egg moments that are true and unique to the game, which are totally absurd and charming and hilarious at the same time.” (Warner Bros.
Pictures) An IronSword appears on a Crafting Table, in a scene from "A Minecraft Movie." After finishing “A Minecraft Movie” — Hess was only done with the color correction and sound mixing about a month ago — Hess observes what’s different, and what’s the same, about making an independent movie vs. a big-budget studio film.
“If you’re doing an indie film, once production’s done, you jump right into editing, and you edit everything you shot and you’re done,” Hess said. “After you do production on a movie like this, you’re still directing all the visual effects and the animation for 9 or 10 months after the fact, or even longer.” “.
.. But at its core, it’s still storytelling,” Hess said.
“You’re trying to make people care and be surprised and laugh and feel the stakes of the film. So that part of filmmaking remains the same. .
.. It takes a lot longer.
”.
