^{Image: Getty}

This will be the third major game adaptation Jack Black has starred in lately, following The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Borderlands.

Hollywood actor Jack Black has officially joined the cast of Warner Bros. Pictures’ upcoming Minecraft movie, according to Deadline. The actor will play Steve, one of the game’s nine default player character skins. Black joins Jason Momoa (Aquaman), Emma Myers (Wednesday) and Danielle Brooks (Peacemaker) in the main cast, which seems to still be taking shape as the movie heads into full production.

The Minecraft movie is set to start filming in New Zealand at the end of January.

Jack Black joins the Minecraft movie.

Jack Black seems to be collecting starring roles in Hollywood game adaptations like Infinity Stones of late. The actor voiced the villainous Bowser in The Super Mario Bros. Movie last year and went on to star in the Borderlands movie as Claptrap, the latter of which hasn’t hit cinemas just yet. He also ran a popular gaming YouTube channel called Jablinski Games for a few years, though it hasn’t produced a new video in seven months now.

To his credit, the actor is already neck-deep in research material for the Minecraft movie:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jack Black (@jackblack)

The Minecraft movie has been slowly padding out its main cast for the last few months. The movie was announced to star Jason Momoa in a mystery role in 2022. Danielle Brooks, Sebastian Eugene Hansen and Emma Myers joined the cast late last year, and filming is set to begin later this month. Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite) will direct the film. Matt Berry (What We Do in the Shadows) was also in talks to join the main cast but hasn’t been confirmed to star yet.

The plot of the Minecraft movie is being kept under wraps for now, but it’s hard to imagine how Warner Bros. Pictures plans to adapt a sandbox game for the big screen. The movie has had a rocky development cycle, with Shawn Levy (Deadpool 3) first attached to the project before Rob McElhenney (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) stepped in to replace him. Peter Sollett (Metal Lords) attempted to revive the project with an entirely different story, before being replaced by Jared Hess. Filming was planned to kick off in late 2023, but actors’ and writers’ strikes in Hollywood caused further delays.

The Minecraft movie is now set to hit theatres on April 4, 2025.

Jack Black will star as Steve in upcoming live-action Minecraft movie