Shawn Levy Drops out of MINECRAFT Film
After a month of being attached to direct a live-action adaptation of the popular video game Minecraft, Shawn Levy has dropped out. That’s not all, though. According to Variety, writers Kieran Mulroney and Michele Mulroney have left the Warner Bros. project as well.
So what happened? Apparently, the creative team presented a new idea to the studio last month, but that idea didn’t fit with what the video game developers were looking for, so Levy and the studio thought that the best idea for them to part ways. In an interview with WSJ, Levy said,
"What happened simply is, Warners asked me to develop kind of how might this ever be a story for a movie, because it’s not a narrative game. We came up with an approach that felt good to us and I discussed it with Mojang, the game makers who make Minecraft, and they were like, that doesn’t sound like what we want if we’re gonna see a movie get made. We don’t know what we want, but that doesn’t feel right. And I said okay, well that feels like — that’s a movie I can envision."
I’m not sure what a Minecraft film would even look like. It seems like it would be a difficult film concept to come up with, but that’s coming from a guy who has never really played the game. I just watch my kids play during every free moment they have. Levy did say that it would kind of have a Goonies flair to and said,
"I thought it could have been a lot of fun and fulfilled a lot of the qualities people love about the game. But you know what it’s not my game, they know what they’re doing. And the truth is there is a long history of trying to make great movies out of games, and they’re rarely done well. I think Mojang is still figuring out what they want. We gave it a shot and it wasn’t the right fit, and so these things happen."
Levy has a couple other projects that he’s been eyeing, including 40 Thieves, which is a retelling of the Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. He’s also looking a taking on a reimagining of Tinkerbell with Melissa McCarthy and The City That Sailed with Will Smith.