Minecraft film release date blocked in for 2019

The Minecraft film, based on the massively popular video game franchise, will be released on 24 May 2019, according to the game’s developer, Mojang.

The lengthy wait has been defended by Mojang as “the right amount of time to make it completely awesome”.

Minecraft, created by Swedish game designer Markus “Notch” Persson, is a procedurally generated sandbox game in which players harvest elements from the world by day to build tools and shelter to protect themselves from zombie attack at night. Since its release in November 2011, it has become the second-bestselling game of all time (behind Tetris) and, thanks to a interface that allows players to build pretty much anything they want, has been adopted as a teaching aid.

The plot of the Minecraft film is still unknown, although in July last year Mojang hired It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia creator Rob McElhenney as director. The film, which is expected to be live action, is being made in partnership with Warner Bros Animation, the studio behind The Lego Movie.

The Minecraft film is the latest in a line of projects based on video games with minimal narrative to be developed into a feature film. The Angry Birds Movie, based on the mobile-native game in which you catapult disgruntled avians at pigs who’ve stolen their eggs, topped the US box office in May. Meanwhile, a planned film based on the 80s GameBoy staple Tetris was expanded into a trilogy this week.