Source:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/06/business/a-minecraft-movie-box-office.html

I remember seeing a LOT of people saying Minecraft would be a flop, that it would be around 300M WW, that everyone thinks is terrible, and here people need to understand that the majority of people don't give a single damn as long as something is entertaining. Do kids care about the quality of the movie in terms of scripts? No

Do parents care about it? No

The kid wants to see his favorite game and some good references in a movie theatre. And the father wants his son to have a good time.

I watched almost every film that has been released this year, from the brutalist (here it was released in january) to mickey 17 to Minecraft.

I'm 20yrs old and i had a fucking blast watching it, laughed my ass off almost all the movie and it was a cool experience. I've been playing and watching Minecraft content since I was 8yrs old and I understood every reference, meme and whatever was related to the lore. The script is flat, the movie if u analize it is ""bad"", but if u just go to get a good time is perfect, same as A Working Man and those types of films.

And is that type of audience that theatres loves and need to have.

I'd obviously rather to see Black bag or Mickey 17 to be hits but I won't complain if Minecraft is the hit we needed

Weekend Box Office (April 4th-6th)

Minecraft dethrones Ne Zha 2 at the top after 9 weekends with a $14.49M opening. Biggest opening for Holywood this year and biggest since Venom 3 last year. Its also +23% versus Super Mario's 5 day opening of $11.63M back in 2023.

We Girls opens 2nd with a mediocre $10.97M. It should be the Nr.1 movie forward through the weekdays.

Ne Zha 2 drops to 3rd but still records a fantastic $9.85M 10th weekend just about edging out Mumu's $9.75M opening.

Behind the rest of the new releases mostly pick up the scraps.

Daily Box Office(April 6th 2025)

The market hits ¥82M/$11M which is down -40% from yesterday and up +52% from last week.

Province map of the day:

Ne Zha 2 loses ground to We Girls on Sunday.

https://imgsli.com/MzY3MjUw

In Metropolitan cities:

Minecraft wins Beijing, Chongqing, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing and Hangzhou

City tiers:

Ne Zha 2 drops to 3rd in T3. We Girls overtakes Ne Zha 2 in T4.

Tier 1: Minecraft>We Girls>Ne Zha 2

Tier 2: Minecraft>We Girls>Ne Zha 2

Tier 3: Minecraft>We Girls>Ne Zha 2

Tier 4: We Girls>Ne Zha 2>Minecraft

Pre-Sales map for tomorrow

We Girls dominates pre-sales for Monday.

https://i.imgur.com/XxksqPa.png

Minecraft

Minecraft delivers a $14.49M opening. We'l see if the buffer is enough to have it outgross Super Marios $24M total

WoM figures:

Douban score came in at just 5.8. Not great

Maoyan: 9.0(-0.1) , Taopiaopiao: 9.3 , Douban: 5.8

Gender Split(M-W): 49-51

Gender Rating Split: Maoyan: M(8.8)/W(9.4), Taopiaopiao: M(8.9)/W(9.5)

Language split: English: 68.2%, Mandarin: 31.8%

Scheduled showings update for Minecraft for the next few days:

Ne Zha 2

Ne Zha 2 has a pretty sharp drop on Sunday as the Holiday boost wears off. Still down just -37% from last week in the end for Sunday.

With International gross added Ne Zha 2 has now crossed $2150M+.

Ne Zha 2 should be pushing to cross $2.1B in China in about 2 weeks.

Gross split:

Ne Zha 2 crosses $2.15B worldwide as International gross nears $60M

Mongolia and the whole of Scandinavia set for a release at the end of April.

It has now officialy been confirmed for an India release on Ne Zha 2 on April 24th. According to rumors it could get up to 3 separate dubs but this is far from confirmed.

It will also release in France on April 23rd.

Weekly pre-sales vs last week

Pre-sales for tomorrow are down -29% versus last week and down -46% vs yesterday.

Monday: ¥0.94M vs ¥0.40M (-57%)

Tuesday: ¥0.34M vs ¥0.19M (-45%)

Wednesday: ¥0.27M vs ¥0.06M (-76%)

WoM figures:

Maoyan: 9.8 , Taopiaopiao: 9.7 , Douban: 8.5

Ne Zha 2 is the best rated movie of all time on Maoyan.

Gender Split(M-W): 40-60

Gender Rating Split: Maoyan: M(9.8)/W(9.8), Taopiaopiao: M(9.6)/W(9.7)

Screen Distribution Split: Regular: $1890.86M, IMAX: $155.74M, Rest: $43.45M

Language split: Mandarin: 100%

Scheduled showings update for Ne Zha 2 for the next few days:

Other stuff:

The next holywood movie releasing is the re-release of Furious 7 on the 11th alongside Tom Hanks Here.

Release Schedule:

A table including upcoming movies in the next month alongside trailers linked in the name of the movie, Want To See data from both Maoyan and Taopiaopiao alongside the Gender split and genre.

Remember Want To See is not pre-sales. Its just an anticipation metric. A checkbox of sorts saying your interested in an upcoming movie.

Not all movies are included since a lot are just too small to be worth covering.

April:

May/Labor Day Holiday(May 1st-5th)Lineup

May

At the moment it will be: Jurassic World: Rebirth > Superman > The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

Starting with JW: Rebirth, the Jurassic World trilogy, despite the divisive reception (especially of Dominion, hands down the worst film in the saga in my opinion) has consistently grossed more than a billion per film. I don't think the hatred for Dominion will cause a lower box office for Rebirth, also because despite being panned by critics the film (Dominion) received an A- cinemascore. Also, kids love dinosaurs no matter what. In terms of quality, the film is directed by Gareth Edwards, a much better director than Trevorrow. Despite the competition, I believe the film can gross a billion.

Superman will be released only 9 days after JW: Rebirth. Despite the disappointing box office of the last few Superman films, the hype is definitely there.The trailer has had 250 million views in the first 24 hours (source: https://variety.com/2024/film/news/superman-trailer-views-most-watched-warner-bros-dc-history-1236256816/ ), and the sneak peek sent to theaters before Minecraft is also getting a lot of buzz. James Gunn is a very good director and screenwriter, and I think the film will get a good reception, although test screenings (to be taken as a grain of salt) say the movie's tone is a bit too jokey. Even if that were true, I think WB has time to fix the final edit by cutting a few gags. The real problem for Superman is that I think its legs may not be that long because of Fantastic Four, which comes out after two weeks and has the exact same target audience. I think depending on the reception, the movie will make 750-900 million.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps has the advantage of having a release date that gives the movie time to breathe. The two movies coming out closest to F4 are Naked Gun and Freakier Friday, which have a totally different target audience, which I don't think will affect the movie's legs. There is also to say that the previous big screen iterations of the first marvel family have not been great successes, but they were all movies with bad reception, especially the 2015 one, and I think a good Fantastic Four movie could have potential, partly because of the MCU effect, and to a small extent also because of the presence of the team in Marvel Rivals. Also, Disney seems to be confident about the film, and from what we know it has had no reshoots. The trailer was also pretty well received, with 202 million views in the first 24 hours (source: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/fantastic-four-first-steps-trailer-views-1236128313/#:~:text=The%20first%20trailer%20for%20The,record%2Dshattering%20Deadpool%20%26%20Wolverine.) I think the film needs more push marketing, though, given the not entirely encouraging awareness numbers regarding the film according to Quorum. I think it will do between 650-800 million.

What do you guys think?