The news was announced on the official Minecraft.net blog. 

The hugely successful construction game Minecraft has partnered with Warner Bros. on its debut movie release.

Hitting cinema screens in March 2022, the movie follows a teenage girl and her unlikely group of adventurers as they attempt to save their blocky Overworld from the malevolent Ender Dragon. Peter Sollett (Nick & Nora’s Infinite Playlist) will direct the film.

In a blog post published on Minecraft.net, the brand commented: “Since we’re a game developer first, making a movie will be new and very exciting. And while the movie has to be different from the game (otherwise, you’d be in for an infinite movie in very low resolution) one thing will definitely be the same. We want to make the movie just as we make the game -for you. We’re inspired by countless things, but none as much as the incredible stuff our community creates in Minecraft every day. So keep it coming.”

Designed by Markus Persson and Jens Bergensten, and released by Mojang in 2011, Minecraft allows players to build with a variety of different blocks in a 3D procedurally generated world. Since launching, the sandbox game has garnered a slew of awards and accolades; by late 2018, over 154m copies had been sold across all platforms, making it the second best-selling video game of all time, behind Tetris.

The game has generated a number of successful toy lines, including from Jazwares and Lego.