Jack Black Confirmed To Star In ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ Director’s ‘Minecraft’ Movie

After last year’s commercially successful adaptation of Nintendo’s Super Mario Brothers, actor Jack Black has confirmed to be involved with another game-to-film adaptation, Minecraft.

As confirmed on his Instagram in a comedic post, Black will join as a cast member in Napoleon Dynamite director, Jared Hess‘, adaptation of Mojang Studio’s internationally beloved computer game.

First released in 2011 by independent Swedish developer, Notch, Minecraft has grown in the past decade to one of the most played video games in the 21st century with there being over 182 million estimated players who’ve logged in during the past 30 days.

Since 2014, there have been rumors regarding an adaptation of the game to the big screen with Shawn Levy being its original director before leaving Warner.

In 2022, it was confirmed that Hess will be the film’s director, with Aquaman‘s Jason Momoa  starring. Not much is known regarding the plot of the movie but it has been listed to release in 2025.

This will not be Black’s first movie with Hess as he had previously starred in the director’s 2006 film, Nacho Libre, as the titular character.

The actor has been more active in the gaming community in recent years, with him starting a Gaming YouTube channel, JablinskiGames, in 2018, making him one of the first Hollywood actors to venture into the gaming genre of the site. He has since collaborated with Gaming YouTubers such as PewDiePie and JackSepticEye, with him currently having over five million subscribers on his channel.

His notoriety in both the film and gaming communities have led to great fanfare when he was confirmed to be Bowser, Mario’s rival, in the Super Mario Brothers movie, with a massive wave of support from fans opposite to their disappointment with Chris Pratt‘s casting as the video game icon. The announcement of Black joining the cast of the Minecraft movie has brought similar excited fanfare online.

Filming for the movie has been rumored to be soon starting in New Zealand with Momoa, Emma Meyers, Danielle Brooks and Sebastian Eugene Hansen co-starring with Black.