Ah, what could’ve been? A Minecraft Movie star Jack Black was actually supposed to play — get this — a talking pig in the upcoming adaptation of the beloved video game.
“His character was originally a talking pig,” Mojang Studios senior director of original content Torfi Ólafsson revealed to Variety.
“And it was very, very, very late in the development where we had the idea to switch it to become Steve, because we needed an expert and host.”
Ólafsson explained further that Black’s version of the character is specific to him, which is in-line with the notion that Minecraft’s default in-game player is mostly a blank canvas to craft a character onto.
“This is not my Steve or your Steve – this is Jack Black’s Steve,” he said. “A lot of fans responded when they saw the first teasers and trailers, like, ‘Hey, wait a minute — this is just Jack Black. This isn’t Jack Black being someone else.’ And maybe it is, because this is literally him interpreting this character and what it means to him.”
Black was definitely more invested in the game than anyone realized. Production set up specific servers for cast and crew to play during the shoot. According to Ólafsson, Black was the “most passionate player” of the bunch and logged a whopping 100 hours on the game.
“He was just completely manic,” the exec said of Black’s gameplay. “Hoarding stuff in the mines, searching for lapis lazuli because he liked the way it sounds. He kept saying it: ‘Can I talk about lapis lazuli in the movie?’ “
A Minecraft Movie was directed by Napoleon Dynamite writer-director Jared Hess and written by Chris Galletta, Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer, Neil Widener, and Gavin James from a story by Palmer, Bowman, and Allison Schroeder. Alongside Black, the film stars Jason Momoa, Danielle Brooks, Emma Myers, and Sebastian Hansen.
A Minecraft Movie is set to arrive in theaters on April 4, 2025 — which is, coincidentally, also the 50th anniversary of Microsoft.
Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.
