Jack Black is playing Steve in the live-action Minecraft movie – and we're not kidding.
Per Deadline, Black is set to join the film as Steve. In the original game, Steve is a voiceless, personality-free avatar that players can select from among an array of skins, so the door is wide open for whatever Black wants to do with the character. The cast also includes Jason Momoa, Emma Myers (Wednesday), Daniele Brooks (Peacemaker), and Sebastion Eugene Hansen (Just Mercy).
The film was announced back in 2016 and slated for a May 24, 2019 release date with Rob McElhenney set to direct. Warner Bros. reportedly disliked McElhenney's vision for the $150 million film and replaced him with Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist director Peter Sollett. The release date was pushed again to March 4, 2022 before Sollett ultimately left the project.
Jared Hess, director of the iconic and extremely quotable Napoleon Dynamite, is now set to direct, though a writer for the film has not yet been announced nor have plot details been released. A long-since deleted post from 2019 by Minecraft developer Mojang described the plot as "the story of a teenage girl and her unlikely group of adventurers."
Black starred as supervillain Bowser in the highly successful Super Mario Bros. Movie, even composing and performing an original song for the film – which has since been nominated for Best Original Song at the 81st Golden Globes. The actor also wrapped up production on another video game adaptation, this time for Borderlands, in which he provides the voice of Claptrap. He's currently filming the upcoming Christmas fantasy comedy Dear Santa, in which he plays some version of the devil alongside Keegan-Michael Key.
Minecraft is set to hit theaters on April 4, 2025. For more, check out the ever-growing list of upcoming video game movies.
