Steve Carell To Star in MINECRAFT Movie

Variety is reporting that Warner Bros. and Steve Carell are close to finalizing a deal for him to star in Minecraft, a movie based on the second best-selling video game of all time. This is the first big casting announcement for the film.

Currently Carell has starred in commercial films like Crazy Stupid Love and Anchorman 2. More recently, he was in Woody Allen’s Café Society and recently wrapped up Battle of the Sexes with Emma Stone.

Creator of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Rob McElhenny, has signed on to direct. He and screenwriter Jason Fuchs (Wonder Woman, Pan) are penning the script. Mean Girls’ Jill Messick and Roy Lee are producing through his Vertigo Entertainment production company. Warner Bros. approached Lee’s company after they acquired the rights to the video game franchise in February 2016 from Swedish Developer Mojang AB.

Minecraft debuted in 2009. Players create avatars to build cube-rich environments as they battle nocturnal monsters in a 3D world. Multiple game play modes such as survival, creative, and adventure, are available.

Since the game is not set with a traditional story based narrative, it is not sure the direction McElhenney will go with the film. However, the freedom that comes with the lack of a story line has been part of the games appeal, allowing them to boast 100 million players globally.

Telltale Games developed and published Minecraft: Story Mode, which is an episodic point-and-click graphic adventure video game based on Minecraft. They released the five-episode game between October 2015 and March 2016 with three additional downloadable episodes in mid-2016. It is unsure these episodes will inspire McElhenney, however, the trailer for Story Mode can provide a feel of how the Minecraft movie might look.

The movie is set to be released May 25, 2019.