No, we're not telling porkies – Jack Black almost played a talking pig in the Minecraft movie instead of taking on the role of the game's iconic mascot Steve.
"His character was originally a talking pig, 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," Mojang’s senior director of original content Torfi Frans Ólafsson told Variety.
Ólafsson, who revealed that Black played over 100 hours of Minecraft during downtime on-set, also addressed fan concerns that the School of Rock actor is simply playing himself in the upcoming adaptation.
"This is not my Steve or your Steve – this is Jack Black’s Steve," Ólafsson said in reference to Minecraft's default player persona who is, by and large, a blank slate for players to project their own personalities on.
"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.”
On his game-playing experience, Ólafsson added of Black's exploits, "He was just completely manic, 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?’"
As we've glimpsed in the Minecraft trailers so far, Jack Black's Steve acts as an authority on all things building and the Overworld, the land in which the blocky Minecraft world is set. Soon, four humans (played by Jason Momoa, Danielle Brooks, Emma Myers, and Sebastian Hansen) are pulled into the Overworld and enter Steve's orbit – and must undertake a quest to get back home safely.
A Minecraft Movie – complete with TNT popcorn bucket pulled straight from the games – is hitting cinemas on April 4.
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