Night at the Museum director Shawn Levy has exited Warner Bros.’ Minecraft film after having his idea, a Goonies-style adventure of a movie, vetoed by game developer Mojang. Levy explained how it all went down on Friday in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
“I feel like I’ve let the children of America down,” Levy said. “What happened simply is Warner’s asked me to develop, ‘How might this ever be a story for a movie?’ Because it’s not a narrative game. And we came up with an approach that felt good to us, and I discussed it with Mojang. And they’re like, ‘That doesn’t sound like what we want. If we’re going to see a movie get made, we don’t know what we want, but that doesn’t feel right.’ And I said, ‘OK, well that’s a movie I can envision.'”
“It was not a comedy. It had a bit of a Goonies flair” — Levy
“So I’m not sure what happens next, but I’ve got like four other movies that I’m considering for next year,” he added. “It felt like OK, I took a shot there, it wasn’t the right fit, narratively, and so I have to focus on the other ones.”
So what was Levy’s idea for the Minecraft movie? He says it wasn’t going to be a comedy per se, but rather it would have captured the tone and feeling of 1985’s The Goonies.
“It was not a comedy. It had a bit of a Goonies flair,” he explained. “I’m not even allowed to speak of it as much as I have. But it was an adventure movie, and I thought it could have been a lot of fun and fulfilled a lot of the qualities that people love about the game.”
Levy went on to point out that video game movies don’t exactly have the best track record from a critical perspective, and he didn’t want to press Mojang for an idea they didn’t want.
“But it’s not my game; they know what they’re doing,” Levy said. “The truth is there is a long history of trying to make great movies out of games, and they’re rarely done well. Mojang is still figuring out what they want. We gave it a shot and it wasn’t the right fit, so, these things happen.”
As Levy points out, Minecraft–unlike other popular games–doesn’t have a single narrative thread that runs through it. In fact, what many find so compelling about Minecraft is that it’s an open sandbox that allows people to create whatever they want. This is exciting for gamers, but it’s no doubt a challenge for filmmakers such as Levy.
Minecraft fans hopeful to see a movie made someday shouldn’t give up altogether, however, as Levy says another director could come forward to take a stab at a different creative idea for the film.
How would you go about making a movie out of Minecraft? Let us know in the comments below!
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