April 14, 2025 • 21 mins
We dig into the marketing efforts that helped turn pixelated blocks into a blockbuster success.
🔗 Get visuals, links, and show notes for this episode at SpeakingHuman.com or MOMApodcast.com.
#Movies #Marketing #Podcast #BoxOffice #Cinema #Theaters #SpeakingHuman #MOMA #Retrospect #Opinions #Reviews #Minecraft
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/moma-movies-marketing--3296937/support.
🔗 Get visuals, links, and show notes for this episode at SpeakingHuman.com or MOMApodcast.com.
#Movies #Marketing #Podcast #BoxOffice #Cinema #Theaters #SpeakingHuman #MOMA #Retrospect #Opinions #Reviews #Minecraft
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/moma-movies-marketing--3296937/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
In a world where movies rely on marketing more than
ever to connect with audiences.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
One podcast aims to make sense.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Of it all. This is movies and marketing.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Next Saturday Night, where're sending you back to the future?
Go ahead, make my day? How about now you're crazy
Dutch bastard.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
What we've got here.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Is failure Newgate.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Take them look around, where as fresh.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
All of how we might as well good time.
Speaker 4 (00:37):
I am an app I agent.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
So here's the question. What nineteen ninety three movie adaptation
of a video game franchise flopped at the box office
despite a massive popularity of the game, earning only around
thirty eight million dollar worldwide.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
I'm gonna say that. Is that the original Super Mario
Brothers movie?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yes it is? Okay, yeah, I need you'd get that.
But it took nearly thirty years.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
For Mario to bounce back on the big screen. In
twenty twenty three, as everyone probably knows, that smashed records
with over one point thirty six billion at the global
box office, making it the highest grossing video game movie ever.
Which is the Super Mario Brothers movie?
Speaker 4 (01:29):
You put the the on the front, people are.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Like, mm hmm, give me a ticket.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Yeah, so good stuff there, right, Also Jack Black in
that movie. Oh yeah, King Coopa, King Coopa. So next question,
which nineteen ninety five Fantasy Adventure earned over two hundred
and sixty million dollars globally and was later rebooted as
a billion dollar franchise starring The Rock It's Jumanji. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
(02:01):
Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle earned over a nine hundred
and sixty million also included Jack Black.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Jack Black.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
The Secret Sauce to a lot of these movies, and
that one that Jumanji. I don't know if I saw
the second, the sequel, the sequel to the remake, but
the first one pretty good.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, it was entertaining. They have a good formula. I
think for these movies. It's just kind of absurd and fun,
and they tend to, you know, just douse it in humor.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
Yeah, funnier than you think it's gonna be. Probably because
of Jack Black.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Speaking of that, maybe you got a sense of it
in the title and then also in the description. Kind
of in the description we never really come out and
say it, probably to the degree that we should, but
we're talking about a Minecraft movie.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
I am Steve as a child, I yearned for the minds,
but something always got in the way.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
And this is you know, you were just talking about
the Super Mario Brothers movie. This is not the Minecraft movie.
It's a Minecraft movie. Says to me. There's like many
I kind.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Of like it because it doesn't make it the definitive.
You know, this is the Minecraft movie. This is just
a Minecraft movie. It's not trying to set it up
on this pedestal.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
So backing it up a little bit. For those of
you who are somehow not familiar with Minecraft, I don't
know how you could not be in this world we're
living in today. But you know, say you don't know
what is it. It's a twenty eleven sandbox game. That's
a game where players have the freedom to explore the
world nonlinearly, so they don't have to follow a set path.
(03:51):
They can just kind of go wherever, do whatever. You know,
the game's not setting out the mission for them exploring
doing whatever they want. How popular is Minecraft, Well, it's
only the best selling video game of all time, over
three hundred million copies sold, nearly one hundred and seventy
million active players. Those numbers are as of last year.
(04:14):
Probably a little more now. So given the popularity of
the game, of course they're gonna make a movie out
of it. But the path from game screens to big
screens has not been quick or easy. Warner Brothers acquired
the rights to the game back in twenty fourteen, and
since that time a number of different people have been
involved developing the film, among them Rob Macklhaney from It's
(04:39):
Always Sunny in Philadelphia and the director of the Night
of the Museum films, Sean Levy. All those people kind
of came and went, you know, they were kind of
getting where they wanted to with the film. And then
in twenty twenty two, Legendary Entertainment came on to co
produce and they added Jared hess who directed Napoleon Dynamite.
He came on as the that kind of gave us
(05:01):
what we have today, which is a Minecraft movie starring
our man, Jack Black and Jason Momoa. So this movie
tells the story of four misfits pulled through a portal
into a cubic world that thrives on imagination, having no
choice but to master the world. While embarking on a
quest with an expert crafter named Steve This movie hit
(05:25):
theaters on April fourth, So how did a ferret the
box office? As you mentioned, Patrick, pretty freaking good. The
movie was expected to open with around seventy to eighty
million at the domestic box office. It ended up making
one hundred and sixty three million for the weekend. For
those of you keeping track, that is slightly ahead of
(05:46):
Barbie's opening weekend did three hundred and thirteen million worldwide.
Movies said to have cost one hundred and fifty million
to produce before marketing expenses. So this movie is, you know,
looking to be a monster hit. And Patrick, tell me,
you know, before we kind of dive into talking about
this movie. In some of the marketing, what's your relationship
with Minecraft? You're a player and how invested are you
(06:09):
in this material?
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Would you believe that my son is my main connection
with it? I would probably. Yeah, he's been playing since
I don't know, he was a tiny guy. I was
trying to remember back like how far back that goes?
But he's in college now, so yeah, you know it's
been a while.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
Yeah, I'm similar, you know, my personal relationship is based
on my kids relationship to it, and yeah, like you,
I've you know, I know it through them. I know
it mostly through them talking about it, have like played
it a little with them. I think it was the
first real game they kind of played and played over
and over again, and probably along with Roadblocks, is the
(06:50):
most important game of their generation. Are the one that
I know they talk about the most or it comes
up like the most frequently. So that's kind of how
And I guess a lot of people of our generation
attached to it because obviously it wasn't around when we
were younger.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah, this is probably why it's so successful. It's kind
of like Legos, but in the video game world where
they could just build stuff and create.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
Yeah, it's definitely got some more positive notes than a
lot of other games. And I agree with you there
is like the creative aspect where you're not just following along,
you know, you're kind of making and building and doing
things yourself. Even collectively, what kids kind of build together
is pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
The whole point of today when we wanted to talk
a little bit about the marketing, because the marketing for
this movie is pretty crazy. So you know, Warner Brothers,
we talked about Barbie. You know, you think Barbie had
a lot of product tie ins.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
That was just the.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Warm up for Warner Brothers for a Minecraft movie. They
teamed up with forty five different brands.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
That's a lot of nuts.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
We're talking to Rito's, Oreo and Minecraft brand, Poppy Soda,
basically the whole snack aisle. You couldn't walk into the
grocery store without Steve staring you down, you know, he
was everywhere. They even went as far as stuff like
green milk and grown up block meals at McDonald's. But
(08:19):
it ended up being the biggest third party partnership in
Warner Brothers history. And I feel like that's saying something
because they practically painted the world pink for Barbie. So
that's where we're coming at it from. You know, there's
just Minecraft after Minecraft collab going on, but some good
stuff out there.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
You know.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
I gotta even call out the true move Minecraft Vanilla
Green low Fat Milk is just one of the craziest
partnerships I've ever seen. The milk itself is actually green,
you know, which is just pretty wild. It's got a
creeper on the front of it, one of those things
you're like, I don't know who would actually want that,
(08:57):
but it's got that kind of weird novel thing to
it that people are I feel like, are just going
to want to try it for that alone. You know, hey,
look at I'm drinking, or look at them, you know,
make a video of themselves pouring that into some cereal.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
So what marketing effort you were We're just going to
discuss one and we can talk about it. But which
marketing effort did you pick? You know, what did you
like or dislike about it? Maybe there's something interesting or
unique about it. What did you see that you liked?
Speaker 4 (09:24):
So I looked at a lot of these and I
kind of took it back to something in the more
traditional variety of marketing, which was the trailer. So Warner
Brothers released a few different trailers for the Minecraft movie,
and I think some of these hit differently, and you
can even see watching them the kind of progression almost
like found the tone they wanted to hit as they
(09:45):
went along and leaned into audience response to them. So
the one I kind of picked out was the final trailer,
which was released on February twenty seven. It's got thirty
one million views currently, and I feel like this was
the trailer where a click with audiences nailed down just
the tone of the movie as opposed to, you know,
some of the earlier ones that was like more adventure
(10:07):
with a little bit of comic. This one leaned full comic,
essentially basically saying this is meme the movie. You know,
the earlier trailer is hinted at that a little bit,
but this one goes like pure just odd. We're just
going to lean into this odd bondness. Even the things
people have been making fun of about this movie, We're
going to push that forward. This is like a so
(10:29):
bad it's good movie and.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
We're going to own that.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
I mean, this trailer just begins with Jack Black, Momoa
and another character falling from the sky onto a water block,
landing onto some blocky pandas so you're starting with a joke.
Then we kind of start to see more of the world.
We see the overworld and these pretty hilariously realized villagers
(10:53):
with their you know, funny noses which I won't say
what they look like or don't look like, but brought
to life if anybody that.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yeah, we get a lot.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
Of Jason Momoa just hamming it up doing some comedy.
We get Jack Black's line delivery based on the early trailers.
You know, his I Am Steve was getting a response.
There was people saying when the trailers were playing theaters,
people were yelling that back at the screen. So you
get Jack Black saying Flint and Steel, you get the
chicken Jockey moment. At one point, Jason Momoa stares into
(11:25):
Jack Black's eyes and tells.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Him contus, it means goodbye, brother.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
No, it doesn't do.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Look at her it does.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
It's pure jokes in this one, and they're just going
with it. And then I was even looking at some
of the reactions at this time, someone saying the humor
in general appears to be self aware garbage. Someone else saying, God,
that looks horrible. I kind of want to watch it.
It's so bad that it's good. You know, I don't
care what people say. It looks funny. I'm gonna watch
(11:54):
this movie and I'm gonna enjoy it. This trailer was
the moment where it was like, I don't know about this,
but I think I'm gonna like it. Pushed so far
over into bad is flipped all the way around. You know,
it's like, yeah, I just I want to go watch
basically means for two hours and I'm into that. So
it's a great example of a trailer finding against groove
(12:14):
selling the visual style, the comedic tone, and the fact
that you know, this is an all purpose family movie.
We haven't had one of those in a while. One
of those things that I say, you can be like
probably five to ninety five and you go see this.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah, those are all good points.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
I give the marketing team a lot of kudos here
because they really leaned into all of the things that
people made fun of for the initial trailers. I think
that's a huge testament to them just saying we're going
to roll with this.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
Yeah. It almost goes back to that idea of no
publicity is bad publicity. They're like, even if they're joking around,
this is what people are talking about. Yeah, you know,
these are the aspects that have people have the conversation
rolling right.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
And you know, trailers obviously are something It's a key
aspect to all of the marketing for movies, so we
always talk about that. So I'm glad you brought that
up because I appreciated the fact that they didn't have
any pride, you know what I mean, almost like you know,
they were like okay.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
Yeah, all right, Yeah, we are sitting on this precipice.
Is it going to become Barbie like phenomenon and play
that length of time?
Speaker 1 (13:22):
The thing I think will set it apart is the
family friendliness of it. The thing that could hinder it
is that Barbie did have a sort of an adult
key to it, which I think will this get enough
of just adults going who don't know anything about Minecraft.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
Yeah, and we'll talk a little bit more about our
predictions in a minute here. So let's hold let's cork
that for a second.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
So I picked the McDonald's collab. This takes me back
to my youth. This is what the Minecraft movie really
is all about kids. Granted some of those kids are
now adults who started playing this game, but it's about
being a kid. So McDonald's collab, I.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Think is a real centerpiece of that.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
They partnered with Minecraft. They're offering limited time meals and
exclusive collectibles that blend the fast food experience with the
beloved block building game. So you can choose from two
themed meal options. They have the Minecraft Movie Meal, or
I should say a Minecraft Movie Meal. The meal includes
a choice of a Big Mac, ten piece chicken.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Nuggets, blah, blah blah.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
But the Chicken McNuggets meal features this exclusive Nether Flame sauce,
which is a spicy condiment inspired by the Nether dimension.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
I'm curious on that one.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Yeah, I'm kind of curious. It's got a crushed red pepper, cayenne,
and garlic. It sounds interesting. Yeah, Anyway, they got that meal,
and then they have a Minecraft Movie Happy Meal, which
is you know, for the younger kids out there or
adults who still love happy meals, and you can collect
one of twelve unique Minecraft themed toys. But each toy
(14:58):
represents characters and elements from the Minecraft universe, so giving
you know, that to for the kids.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
I actually look at some of these toys and I'm like, oh,
that's kind of cool. I kind of want to just
get that.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
You know, the packaging and everything reflects that Minecraft pixelated design,
and all the collectibles too. From what I understand, they
all have a scannable code that unlocks exclusive in game
content because you know, again, the key is bringing them
back to the game, bridging.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
The physical and digital worlds.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
The fun thing is that they did with it, you know,
like they have the videos and stuff that they put
online where like Grimace and the Hamburglar and Birdy blocks. Yeah,
they're like block versions in the Minecraft world. That's smart,
you know, it's kind of like going that next level
of bridging the gap between the game and real life,
which I kind of like.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
But uh, yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Think this is a really fun, creative way of having
McDonald's be a part of that never ending story. Not
to be confused with the movie.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
I like a lot that they didn't just make this
like happy meal toys that they did the adult meal
toys too.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
These things can be enticing to whether it's a young
person or you know, an adult. I think they've done
a really good job with that.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
You know. In some of these collectibles, let me, you know,
describe these. The Big Mac Crystal mind from the Sea
of special sauce. This precious block derives its radiant shine
from melty cheese and a toasty sesame seed bun. What
about the fry helmet forged from the iconic French fry box.
This enchanted helmet is rumored to protect you from friends
(16:37):
stealing your last fry or the zombie Hamburgler. Little is
known about this hungry mob who spawns late at night
and wanders all biomes in search of hamburgers, So just
some good stuff. I know my kids in general, they're
just getting beyond that happy Meal stage. But they've murmured
complaints for years about how the Happy Meal toys used
(17:00):
to be good. Now they sucker. They're just like breech Read.
A lot of times they would go there and just
get whatever's like leftover from years past thrown in there.
You know, it would be like a Marvel figure two
years too late, and they'd be like, what the hell's this?
There's not even like a new tie in in there.
So it's good for McDonald's. I feel like to re
up their juice on something like this. I saw a
(17:21):
thing from the executive vice president of worldwide marketing at
Warner Brothers who said, the number one thing we were
thinking with the marketing was how do we blockify the world?
So I thought that was you know, especially when you
were talking about the commercials with a blockified grimace. You know,
it's like a great example for that, or like, you know,
get these get these skins kind of how do we
(17:43):
like kind of put that around everywhere? You know, you
go in the grocery store, you see milk. How can
we make everything into a block, make everything you see,
every product you have, make you think of a Minecraft movie.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Yeah, that's the goal. Right.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
There's just so many good brand call co laborations, and
the fact that they had so many, I think given
them opportunity to really expand and highlight the nuances of
each of the brands, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
Yeah, Yeah, I think they knew they had a good
property to work with, especially with the block aspect that
you can do a lot with.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Yeah, lots of great marketing efforts, you know what we
talked about. But we've been on this kick of trying
to predict how much you think the total box office
takeaway is going to be. We got the opening weekend,
which is the big one. Yeah, we're seeing the writing
on the wall. What do you think domestic, global, worldwide?
Speaker 2 (18:38):
What do you think it's going to do?
Speaker 4 (18:40):
So I was looking so my two kind of comparisons
for this. I was looking at Barbie, as we talked about,
which made six ended up with six hundred and thirty
six million domestic one forty four or one point four
to four billion worldwide. And the other one was, as
we mentioned, the Super Mario Brothers movie. That one did
(19:00):
five seventy four million, one point three six billion worldwide.
I don't know why. I think it's gonna be a
little slightly under both of those. So I'm gonna go
for my domestic I'm gonna go five forty five million
and worldwide one point two billion, So just to just
(19:22):
a touch under both of those, and that might be
low because this movie is going to own this whole
month now that I'm thinking about it, because nothing's really
going to come out till May that's going.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
To touch it. Yeah, so I'm gonna go high.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
You're going high.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Yeah, I'm gonna go hide, you know, because what do
I have to lose? Just my dignity?
Speaker 4 (19:39):
Are we doing the go over rule?
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Yeah, of course if I if I go over, I
lose price is right rules? Yeah, I lose immediately. So
I'm gonna say seven fifty domestic. Okay, I'm going real high.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
Yeah, you're going you're shooting it.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
I'm just I'm shooting for the stars. But I'm gonna
say i'll go a little lower for the world wide,
but I'll say one point five billion for the worldwide.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
I love it. Oh, you're thinking big. I hope this
happens because we need this box office juice. So you're
saying seven point fifty domestic one point five billion worldwide.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah, and I know beyond Barbie. Yeah, and I.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Know, and I know deep down in my soul it
won't probably hit those numbers.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
But I have hope. I gotta have hope of.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Something doing good in the theaters this summer, and this
seems like it's my best shot at this point.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
Well, we pretty much know the answer now because it's
probably just like Dune, it's going to be right down
the middle between us. Mm hmm, So it'd be like
six fifty you know, one point three five billion.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Yeah, but that's okay because we made it happen. Yeah,
you know you will shot low, I shot high.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
You know.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
It'll be a good case study for the whole year
because movies need an injection right now, and this is
definitely giving at least the beginnings of that.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
People need it escapism too. I think like this.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Movie allows you to sort of escape literally to another realm.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
It's good to have these like giant movies that push
people into the theaters and remind them, Oh yeah, I
like going to the movies.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Yeah, so let us know what your favorite Minecraft movie
collab is. Send us one an email maybe, or go.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
To the website. Do that.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
Yeah, send us a video of you drinking the green milk.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Oh, that would be amazing If you could do that,
I would love to see it.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Send it to us. Don't send it anywhere else. Just
send it to us.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
Don't post it on your TikTok.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Send it to us. Well, that's it for this episode
of Movies and Marketing. Until next time, let's fade to black.
I'll be back. It's not coming back.
In a world where movies rely on marketing more than
ever to connect with audiences.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
One podcast aims to make sense.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Of it all. This is movies and marketing.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Next Saturday Night, where're sending you back to the future?
Go ahead, make my day? How about now you're crazy
Dutch bastard.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
What we've got here.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Is failure Newgate.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Take them look around, where as fresh.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
All of how we might as well good time.
Speaker 4 (00:37):
I am an app I agent.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
So here's the question. What nineteen ninety three movie adaptation
of a video game franchise flopped at the box office
despite a massive popularity of the game, earning only around
thirty eight million dollar worldwide.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
I'm gonna say that. Is that the original Super Mario
Brothers movie?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yes it is? Okay, yeah, I need you'd get that.
But it took nearly thirty years.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
For Mario to bounce back on the big screen. In
twenty twenty three, as everyone probably knows, that smashed records
with over one point thirty six billion at the global
box office, making it the highest grossing video game movie ever.
Which is the Super Mario Brothers movie?
Speaker 4 (01:29):
You put the the on the front, people are.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Like, mm hmm, give me a ticket.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Yeah, so good stuff there, right, Also Jack Black in
that movie. Oh yeah, King Coopa, King Coopa. So next question,
which nineteen ninety five Fantasy Adventure earned over two hundred
and sixty million dollars globally and was later rebooted as
a billion dollar franchise starring The Rock It's Jumanji. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
(02:01):
Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle earned over a nine hundred
and sixty million also included Jack Black.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Jack Black.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
The Secret Sauce to a lot of these movies, and
that one that Jumanji. I don't know if I saw
the second, the sequel, the sequel to the remake, but
the first one pretty good.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, it was entertaining. They have a good formula. I
think for these movies. It's just kind of absurd and fun,
and they tend to, you know, just douse it in humor.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
Yeah, funnier than you think it's gonna be. Probably because
of Jack Black.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Speaking of that, maybe you got a sense of it
in the title and then also in the description. Kind
of in the description we never really come out and
say it, probably to the degree that we should, but
we're talking about a Minecraft movie.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
I am Steve as a child, I yearned for the minds,
but something always got in the way.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
And this is you know, you were just talking about
the Super Mario Brothers movie. This is not the Minecraft movie.
It's a Minecraft movie. Says to me. There's like many
I kind.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Of like it because it doesn't make it the definitive.
You know, this is the Minecraft movie. This is just
a Minecraft movie. It's not trying to set it up
on this pedestal.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
So backing it up a little bit. For those of
you who are somehow not familiar with Minecraft, I don't
know how you could not be in this world we're
living in today. But you know, say you don't know
what is it. It's a twenty eleven sandbox game. That's
a game where players have the freedom to explore the
world nonlinearly, so they don't have to follow a set path.
(03:51):
They can just kind of go wherever, do whatever. You know,
the game's not setting out the mission for them exploring
doing whatever they want. How popular is Minecraft, Well, it's
only the best selling video game of all time, over
three hundred million copies sold, nearly one hundred and seventy
million active players. Those numbers are as of last year.
(04:14):
Probably a little more now. So given the popularity of
the game, of course they're gonna make a movie out
of it. But the path from game screens to big
screens has not been quick or easy. Warner Brothers acquired
the rights to the game back in twenty fourteen, and
since that time a number of different people have been
involved developing the film, among them Rob Macklhaney from It's
(04:39):
Always Sunny in Philadelphia and the director of the Night
of the Museum films, Sean Levy. All those people kind
of came and went, you know, they were kind of
getting where they wanted to with the film. And then
in twenty twenty two, Legendary Entertainment came on to co
produce and they added Jared hess who directed Napoleon Dynamite.
He came on as the that kind of gave us
(05:01):
what we have today, which is a Minecraft movie starring
our man, Jack Black and Jason Momoa. So this movie
tells the story of four misfits pulled through a portal
into a cubic world that thrives on imagination, having no
choice but to master the world. While embarking on a
quest with an expert crafter named Steve This movie hit
(05:25):
theaters on April fourth, So how did a ferret the
box office? As you mentioned, Patrick, pretty freaking good. The
movie was expected to open with around seventy to eighty
million at the domestic box office. It ended up making
one hundred and sixty three million for the weekend. For
those of you keeping track, that is slightly ahead of
(05:46):
Barbie's opening weekend did three hundred and thirteen million worldwide.
Movies said to have cost one hundred and fifty million
to produce before marketing expenses. So this movie is, you know,
looking to be a monster hit. And Patrick, tell me,
you know, before we kind of dive into talking about
this movie. In some of the marketing, what's your relationship
with Minecraft? You're a player and how invested are you
(06:09):
in this material?
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Would you believe that my son is my main connection
with it? I would probably. Yeah, he's been playing since
I don't know, he was a tiny guy. I was
trying to remember back like how far back that goes?
But he's in college now, so yeah, you know it's
been a while.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
Yeah, I'm similar, you know, my personal relationship is based
on my kids relationship to it, and yeah, like you,
I've you know, I know it through them. I know
it mostly through them talking about it, have like played
it a little with them. I think it was the
first real game they kind of played and played over
and over again, and probably along with Roadblocks, is the
(06:50):
most important game of their generation. Are the one that
I know they talk about the most or it comes
up like the most frequently. So that's kind of how
And I guess a lot of people of our generation
attached to it because obviously it wasn't around when we
were younger.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah, this is probably why it's so successful. It's kind
of like Legos, but in the video game world where
they could just build stuff and create.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
Yeah, it's definitely got some more positive notes than a
lot of other games. And I agree with you there
is like the creative aspect where you're not just following along,
you know, you're kind of making and building and doing
things yourself. Even collectively, what kids kind of build together
is pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
The whole point of today when we wanted to talk
a little bit about the marketing, because the marketing for
this movie is pretty crazy. So you know, Warner Brothers,
we talked about Barbie. You know, you think Barbie had
a lot of product tie ins.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
That was just the.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Warm up for Warner Brothers for a Minecraft movie. They
teamed up with forty five different brands.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
That's a lot of nuts.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
We're talking to Rito's, Oreo and Minecraft brand, Poppy Soda,
basically the whole snack aisle. You couldn't walk into the
grocery store without Steve staring you down, you know, he
was everywhere. They even went as far as stuff like
green milk and grown up block meals at McDonald's. But
(08:19):
it ended up being the biggest third party partnership in
Warner Brothers history. And I feel like that's saying something
because they practically painted the world pink for Barbie. So
that's where we're coming at it from. You know, there's
just Minecraft after Minecraft collab going on, but some good
stuff out there.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
You know.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
I gotta even call out the true move Minecraft Vanilla
Green low Fat Milk is just one of the craziest
partnerships I've ever seen. The milk itself is actually green,
you know, which is just pretty wild. It's got a
creeper on the front of it, one of those things
you're like, I don't know who would actually want that,
(08:57):
but it's got that kind of weird novel thing to
it that people are I feel like, are just going
to want to try it for that alone. You know, hey,
look at I'm drinking, or look at them, you know,
make a video of themselves pouring that into some cereal.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
So what marketing effort you were We're just going to
discuss one and we can talk about it. But which
marketing effort did you pick? You know, what did you
like or dislike about it? Maybe there's something interesting or
unique about it. What did you see that you liked?
Speaker 4 (09:24):
So I looked at a lot of these and I
kind of took it back to something in the more
traditional variety of marketing, which was the trailer. So Warner
Brothers released a few different trailers for the Minecraft movie,
and I think some of these hit differently, and you
can even see watching them the kind of progression almost
like found the tone they wanted to hit as they
(09:45):
went along and leaned into audience response to them. So
the one I kind of picked out was the final trailer,
which was released on February twenty seven. It's got thirty
one million views currently, and I feel like this was
the trailer where a click with audiences nailed down just
the tone of the movie as opposed to, you know,
some of the earlier ones that was like more adventure
(10:07):
with a little bit of comic. This one leaned full comic,
essentially basically saying this is meme the movie. You know,
the earlier trailer is hinted at that a little bit,
but this one goes like pure just odd. We're just
going to lean into this odd bondness. Even the things
people have been making fun of about this movie, We're
going to push that forward. This is like a so
(10:29):
bad it's good movie and.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
We're going to own that.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
I mean, this trailer just begins with Jack Black, Momoa
and another character falling from the sky onto a water block,
landing onto some blocky pandas so you're starting with a joke.
Then we kind of start to see more of the world.
We see the overworld and these pretty hilariously realized villagers
(10:53):
with their you know, funny noses which I won't say
what they look like or don't look like, but brought
to life if anybody that.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yeah, we get a lot.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
Of Jason Momoa just hamming it up doing some comedy.
We get Jack Black's line delivery based on the early trailers.
You know, his I Am Steve was getting a response.
There was people saying when the trailers were playing theaters,
people were yelling that back at the screen. So you
get Jack Black saying Flint and Steel, you get the
chicken Jockey moment. At one point, Jason Momoa stares into
(11:25):
Jack Black's eyes and tells.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Him contus, it means goodbye, brother.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
No, it doesn't do.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Look at her it does.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
It's pure jokes in this one, and they're just going
with it. And then I was even looking at some
of the reactions at this time, someone saying the humor
in general appears to be self aware garbage. Someone else saying, God,
that looks horrible. I kind of want to watch it.
It's so bad that it's good. You know, I don't
care what people say. It looks funny. I'm gonna watch
(11:54):
this movie and I'm gonna enjoy it. This trailer was
the moment where it was like, I don't know about this,
but I think I'm gonna like it. Pushed so far
over into bad is flipped all the way around. You know,
it's like, yeah, I just I want to go watch
basically means for two hours and I'm into that. So
it's a great example of a trailer finding against groove
(12:14):
selling the visual style, the comedic tone, and the fact
that you know, this is an all purpose family movie.
We haven't had one of those in a while. One
of those things that I say, you can be like
probably five to ninety five and you go see this.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah, those are all good points.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
I give the marketing team a lot of kudos here
because they really leaned into all of the things that
people made fun of for the initial trailers. I think
that's a huge testament to them just saying we're going
to roll with this.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
Yeah. It almost goes back to that idea of no
publicity is bad publicity. They're like, even if they're joking around,
this is what people are talking about. Yeah, you know,
these are the aspects that have people have the conversation
rolling right.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
And you know, trailers obviously are something It's a key
aspect to all of the marketing for movies, so we
always talk about that. So I'm glad you brought that
up because I appreciated the fact that they didn't have
any pride, you know what I mean, almost like you know,
they were like okay.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
Yeah, all right, Yeah, we are sitting on this precipice.
Is it going to become Barbie like phenomenon and play
that length of time?
Speaker 1 (13:22):
The thing I think will set it apart is the
family friendliness of it. The thing that could hinder it
is that Barbie did have a sort of an adult
key to it, which I think will this get enough
of just adults going who don't know anything about Minecraft.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
Yeah, and we'll talk a little bit more about our
predictions in a minute here. So let's hold let's cork
that for a second.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
So I picked the McDonald's collab. This takes me back
to my youth. This is what the Minecraft movie really
is all about kids. Granted some of those kids are
now adults who started playing this game, but it's about
being a kid. So McDonald's collab, I.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Think is a real centerpiece of that.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
They partnered with Minecraft. They're offering limited time meals and
exclusive collectibles that blend the fast food experience with the
beloved block building game. So you can choose from two
themed meal options. They have the Minecraft Movie Meal, or
I should say a Minecraft Movie Meal. The meal includes
a choice of a Big Mac, ten piece chicken.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Nuggets, blah, blah blah.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
But the Chicken McNuggets meal features this exclusive Nether Flame sauce,
which is a spicy condiment inspired by the Nether dimension.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
I'm curious on that one.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Yeah, I'm kind of curious. It's got a crushed red pepper, cayenne,
and garlic. It sounds interesting. Yeah, Anyway, they got that meal,
and then they have a Minecraft Movie Happy Meal, which
is you know, for the younger kids out there or
adults who still love happy meals, and you can collect
one of twelve unique Minecraft themed toys. But each toy
(14:58):
represents characters and elements from the Minecraft universe, so giving
you know, that to for the kids.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
I actually look at some of these toys and I'm like, oh,
that's kind of cool. I kind of want to just
get that.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
You know, the packaging and everything reflects that Minecraft pixelated design,
and all the collectibles too. From what I understand, they
all have a scannable code that unlocks exclusive in game
content because you know, again, the key is bringing them
back to the game, bridging.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
The physical and digital worlds.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
The fun thing is that they did with it, you know,
like they have the videos and stuff that they put
online where like Grimace and the Hamburglar and Birdy blocks. Yeah,
they're like block versions in the Minecraft world. That's smart,
you know, it's kind of like going that next level
of bridging the gap between the game and real life,
which I kind of like.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
But uh, yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Think this is a really fun, creative way of having
McDonald's be a part of that never ending story. Not
to be confused with the movie.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
I like a lot that they didn't just make this
like happy meal toys that they did the adult meal
toys too.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
These things can be enticing to whether it's a young
person or you know, an adult. I think they've done
a really good job with that.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
You know. In some of these collectibles, let me, you know,
describe these. The Big Mac Crystal mind from the Sea
of special sauce. This precious block derives its radiant shine
from melty cheese and a toasty sesame seed bun. What
about the fry helmet forged from the iconic French fry box.
This enchanted helmet is rumored to protect you from friends
(16:37):
stealing your last fry or the zombie Hamburgler. Little is
known about this hungry mob who spawns late at night
and wanders all biomes in search of hamburgers, So just
some good stuff. I know my kids in general, they're
just getting beyond that happy Meal stage. But they've murmured
complaints for years about how the Happy Meal toys used
(17:00):
to be good. Now they sucker. They're just like breech Read.
A lot of times they would go there and just
get whatever's like leftover from years past thrown in there.
You know, it would be like a Marvel figure two
years too late, and they'd be like, what the hell's this?
There's not even like a new tie in in there.
So it's good for McDonald's. I feel like to re
up their juice on something like this. I saw a
(17:21):
thing from the executive vice president of worldwide marketing at
Warner Brothers who said, the number one thing we were
thinking with the marketing was how do we blockify the world?
So I thought that was you know, especially when you
were talking about the commercials with a blockified grimace. You know,
it's like a great example for that, or like, you know,
get these get these skins kind of how do we
(17:43):
like kind of put that around everywhere? You know, you
go in the grocery store, you see milk. How can
we make everything into a block, make everything you see,
every product you have, make you think of a Minecraft movie.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Yeah, that's the goal. Right.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
There's just so many good brand call co laborations, and
the fact that they had so many, I think given
them opportunity to really expand and highlight the nuances of
each of the brands, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
Yeah, Yeah, I think they knew they had a good
property to work with, especially with the block aspect that
you can do a lot with.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Yeah, lots of great marketing efforts, you know what we
talked about. But we've been on this kick of trying
to predict how much you think the total box office
takeaway is going to be. We got the opening weekend,
which is the big one. Yeah, we're seeing the writing
on the wall. What do you think domestic, global, worldwide?
Speaker 2 (18:38):
What do you think it's going to do?
Speaker 4 (18:40):
So I was looking so my two kind of comparisons
for this. I was looking at Barbie, as we talked about,
which made six ended up with six hundred and thirty
six million domestic one forty four or one point four
to four billion worldwide. And the other one was, as
we mentioned, the Super Mario Brothers movie. That one did
(19:00):
five seventy four million, one point three six billion worldwide.
I don't know why. I think it's gonna be a
little slightly under both of those. So I'm gonna go
for my domestic I'm gonna go five forty five million
and worldwide one point two billion, So just to just
(19:22):
a touch under both of those, and that might be
low because this movie is going to own this whole
month now that I'm thinking about it, because nothing's really
going to come out till May that's going.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
To touch it. Yeah, so I'm gonna go high.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
You're going high.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Yeah, I'm gonna go hide, you know, because what do
I have to lose? Just my dignity?
Speaker 4 (19:39):
Are we doing the go over rule?
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Yeah, of course if I if I go over, I
lose price is right rules? Yeah, I lose immediately. So
I'm gonna say seven fifty domestic. Okay, I'm going real high.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
Yeah, you're going you're shooting it.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
I'm just I'm shooting for the stars. But I'm gonna
say i'll go a little lower for the world wide,
but I'll say one point five billion for the worldwide.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
I love it. Oh, you're thinking big. I hope this
happens because we need this box office juice. So you're
saying seven point fifty domestic one point five billion worldwide.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah, and I know beyond Barbie. Yeah, and I.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Know, and I know deep down in my soul it
won't probably hit those numbers.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
But I have hope. I gotta have hope of.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Something doing good in the theaters this summer, and this
seems like it's my best shot at this point.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
Well, we pretty much know the answer now because it's
probably just like Dune, it's going to be right down
the middle between us. Mm hmm, So it'd be like
six fifty you know, one point three five billion.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Yeah, but that's okay because we made it happen. Yeah,
you know you will shot low, I shot high.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
You know.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
It'll be a good case study for the whole year
because movies need an injection right now, and this is
definitely giving at least the beginnings of that.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
People need it escapism too. I think like this.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Movie allows you to sort of escape literally to another realm.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
It's good to have these like giant movies that push
people into the theaters and remind them, Oh yeah, I
like going to the movies.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Yeah, so let us know what your favorite Minecraft movie
collab is. Send us one an email maybe, or go.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
To the website. Do that.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
Yeah, send us a video of you drinking the green milk.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Oh, that would be amazing If you could do that,
I would love to see it.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Send it to us. Don't send it anywhere else. Just
send it to us.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
Don't post it on your TikTok.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Send it to us. Well, that's it for this episode
of Movies and Marketing. Until next time, let's fade to black.
I'll be back. It's not coming back.
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