‘A Minecraft Movie’ digs up box office gold

Hello! Welcome to The Box Office Report for the weekend of April 4-6, 2025.

1. A Minecraft Movie

Weekend gross: $157M
Total domestic gross: $157M
Last weekend: New release
Percent drop: NA

Wow. I did not see a whopping $157 million opening weekend coming for A Minecraft Movie.

Just earlier last week, the movie was tracking for a domestic debut around $65 million, which would have been part of an estimated $130 million to $140 million worldwide haul. Instead, the Jack Black/Jason Momoa adaptation of the insanely popular video game (which also inspired a new flavor of McNuggets dipping sauce), absolutely blew away those estimates.

A $157 million opening weekend is the second biggest debut for a Momoa movie, trailing only Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’s $166 million. It’s the biggest first weekend for Black, leaping past The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s $146.4 million. And it’s easily the best opener for director Jared Hess, trouncing the $28.3 million that Nacho Libre (another Black movie) opened with in 2006.

I totally underestimated how successfully the popularity of Minecraft would drive A Minecraft Movie to this level of box office power. Sure, I love watching Black host SNL — but did this movie ever really need that kind of promotion? Or was it going to be a success from the day it was greenlit?

2. A Working Man

Weekend gross: $7.3M
Total domestic gross: $27.8M
Last weekend: 1st
Percent drop: 53

After whistling while it worked Snow White out of first place last weekend, A Working Man dropped to the No. 2 spot this past weekend. It definitely feels like the Jason Statham movie threaded a very fine needle when it came to capitalizing on the box office failure of Snow White right before A Minecraft Movie took over.