AMinecraftMoviedoesn’t look especially good. Fans of the game have been bemoaning the idea of a film adaptation for years. Few games rely more heavily on their gameplay thanMinecraft. Taking the interactivity out ofMinecraftis a tough proposition, balancing an entire feature film on the back of iconography. Still, a talented filmmaker can make a good movie out of anything. Jared Hess, the director in charge of making a good movie out ofMinecraft, is a weird choice for the gig.
It’s unfair to suggest a director can’t make one kind of film just because they haven’t done so before. If a filmmaker becomes an icon off the back of a few stellar horror movies, that doesn’t preclude them fromnailing a romantic comedy. Even if they’ve struggled to capture a specific tone or genre in the past, films can go wrong for countless different reasons. It is still interesting to speculate how a specific director might handle a new project, especially with a body of work as varied as Hess'.
Chris Bowman and Hubbel Palmer
Stars
Jack Black, Jason Momoa, Emma Myers, Danielle Brooks, and Sebastian Eugene Hansen
Release Date
June 05, 2025
The thing that eventually becameA Minecraft Movietechnically started around 2014, though Mojang started receiving film offers at least two years earlier. Given the decade-long run-up, it should surprise no one that Jared Hess was not the first director Warner Bros. tapped for the project.Minecraftcreator Notch famously shut down an attempt to crowdfund a fan film shortly before he announced his interactions with WB and only five years beforeMicrosoft started distancing themselves from himfor his vocal support for conspiracy theories.
WB first approachedDeadpool & Wolverinedirector Shawn Levy for the project, but he was gone two months later.It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphiastar Rob McElhenneystepped up in 2015, moving through two sets of writers in the three years he stuck around. He left in 2018, citing scheduling conflicts. Peter Sollett, most recently known forMetal Lords, became the next credited director. The pandemic buried the film for almost four years, but by the time it returned, it did so without Sollet. Finally, Jared Hess signed on as the fourth and (probably) final director. The world will never know what the minds behindFree Guy,Mythic Quest, orNick & Norah’s Infinite Playlistmight have done withMinecraft.
What else has Jared Hess done?
Jared Hess exploded onto the scene with one of the defining films of the 2000s,Napoleon Dynamite. Hess' debut feature didn’t just make 100 times its modest budget and earn positive reviews; it practically rewrote most human interaction for the generation that grew up with it. 20 years later, it’s hard to overstate theimpactNapoleon Dynamitehadon pop culture. It will almost certainly be Hess' magnum opus. It’s a deeply personal autobiographical work that seems to lay out Hess’s childhood and all of its eccentricities in one 95-minute package. Anything would have struggled to follow the film that dominated every T-shirt in North America, but that reputation has followed Hess.
Nacho Librecast Jack Black as a luchador and massively overrelied on a single joke.Napoleon Dynamitecertainly nevercould’ve struck twice, butNacho Libreisn’t really an attempt to recapture the old glory. It’s another off-beat comedy, but the lack of strong characterization robbed Hess’s sophomore effort of its impact. His next two projects,Gentleman BroncosandDon Verdean, were both critically bashed and widely ignored. His 2016 film,Masterminds, brought him back to a more middling critical reputation but still failed to draw eyes. Hess co-directed his first children’s film withThelma the Unicornfor Netflix in 2024. It’s his second project ever to receive a Certified Fresh rating from Rotten Tomatoes.
What does Jared Hess' career say aboutA Minecraft Movie?
Hess’s current filmography makes him an interestingchoice forA Minecraft Movie. He’s worked with a lot of the other talent on the project. Writers Chris Bowman and Hubbell Palmer previously worked with Hess onMasterminds. Most of Hess’s previous projects were collaborations with his wife, Jerusha, who co-wroteNapoleon Dynamite.Thelmais his first and only children’s film so far, but it came with help from first-time director and longtime animator Lynn Wang. Bizarrely, Hess’s best post-Napoleon Dynamitework is in documentaries. HisMurder Among the MormonsandMuscles and MayhemNetflixminiseries are both excellent, providing him with a solid path away from his quirky comedy gimmick. Still, Hess stated that he provided the pitch that becameA Minecraft Movie, suggesting that he’s not just taking over someone else’s project.
A Minecraft Moviedoesn’t look anything like Hess’s work. It lacks the sincerity and depth of his early work and the outsider oddity of his newer pieces. Not unlikeThelma the Unicorn, it will probably feel completely out of step in his filmography. If it is similar, thetrailers are selling the wrong movie. Hess’s influence is probably not the thing that sinks this movie. It’s just one block in the grim monument to merchandising Warner Bros. insists on building. It seems fitting that the guy who popularized “Vote for Pedro” shirts would go right back to selling merch.
