This week I took my son, Zac, to see the new Minecraft movie, which is hardly a remarkable statement in the highly video game-branded world of 21st-century cinema – except that what followed was not typical at all. At least, not yet.
As you may have seen from a number of bewildered news reports over the last few days, A Minecraft Movie has quickly engendered a community of, let’s say, highly engaged and enthusiastic fans. Spurred on by TikTok meme posts, vast portions of the film’s audience are now yelling out key lines of dialogue as they happen and singing along to the songs. In one key moment where a rare character from the game – the zombie chicken jockey – is introduced, they go absolutely crazy, throwing drinks and popcorn around, and in some US cinemas, getting escorted from the screening by police.
