Jared Hess is losing sleep due to all the audience reaction videos he’s seen for his latest film, A Minecraft Movie — but in a good way. The director’s wife keeps having to tell him to put the phone away, otherwise he’d never get any rest.
“It’s been so bananas,” Hess tells Entertainment Weekly two days after Minecraft‘s impressive box office haul over its opening weekend. “It’s been way too fun. People are sending me these really hilarious speeches that a lot of teenagers are giving right before the movie. It’s so hysterical, man. I’m staying up way too late.”
What is this “chicken jockey” trend, you ask? One scene in the movie involves Jason Momoa‘s Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison enter a boxing ring to tango with what he thinks is just a Minecraft-style chicken. A hatch then opens from above, out of which drops a little Frankenstein’s-monster-looking zombie, who then rides the chicken into battle.
It’s a reference to the chicken jockey from the internationally popular video game Minecraft, upon which the film is based. A small percentage of the block-shaped zombies within that sandbox-style title will ride a chicken, thereby becoming chicken jockeys. At this moment in the film, Jack Black‘s Steve screams, “Chicken jockey!” prompting many a teen-filled audience around the world to scream the phrase at the top of their lungs and break into popcorn-throwing applause.
But that’s not the only response. Folks in various screenings will hoot and holler along to other notable lines in the movie, many of which were already previewed in the trailers, including Black’s “Water bucket, release!” and “This is a crafting table!” The reaction videos, shot by fans inside theaters, have dominated social media platforms. One viral video in particular depicts a screening that got so rowdy as to attract the attention of police officers, who came to escort the main perpetrators out of the theater.
“It’s weird when you’re having too much fun and the cops get called,” Hess tells EW. “It’s funny because I think it’s just literally cheering and throwing popcorn, which is so funny to me that cops are getting called for popcorn. Yeah, it’s hilarious. I’ve seen so many funny videos. It’s great, especially when people are climbing on their friends’ shoulders and standing up and cheering for those moments. It’s like this crazy anticipation. But, man, I’m just glad people are making memories with their friends and families.”
A Minecraft Movie sees Black’s Steve and Momoa’s Garrett traveling through a mysterious portal to the cubic realm of the Overworld with Sebastian Hansen’s Henry, Emma Myers’ Natalie, and Danielle Brooks’ Dawn. Together they must defend this world from evil creatures like the Piglins and zombies.
Hess had an early inkling they had something on their hands with the chicken jockey moment. About two weeks before the film opened, his son, Elliot, was home from college for spring break. The filmmaker got wind that his son’s buddies around the dorm were already walking around saying, “chicken jockey!” to each other.
“My wife and daughters were like, ‘Elliot! Be quiet! We’re so sick,’ because he was quoting ‘chicken jockey’ all the time… but had no clue that it would then evolve into what’s been happening at theaters,” Hess recalls. “It’s just a bonanza.”
Some theaters have started posted warnings about potential audience reactions to Minecraft screenings. In some cases, locations are banning unaccompanied minors and large groups of teen boys in an attempt to curb any boisterous stunts. New Jersey’s Township Theatre is one such location, citing “large groups of unsupervised boys engaged in completely unacceptable behavior, including vandalism.”
But for better or worse, this kind of response undoubtedly helped propel Minecraft‘s box office numbers to $157 million domestically and $301 million worldwide over opening weekend.
Hess agrees it all feels like a Rock Horror Picture Show moment, though he admittedly hasn’t attended one of those screenings where fans dress up as characters and recite the lines. “I’m just so happy that people are finding joy in going back to cinemas and seeing things as a community, as a group of people,” he says. “It’s like we’ve become so isolated on our devices, and it’s just fun to experience things as a group of human beings. I think people are starved for that experience. So it’s fun that they’ve found it in this goofy movie that we’ve made.”
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The response internally has also been glowing, but Hess doesn’t know yet if Warner Bros. will greenlight a sequel. People are talking about it, he says. There are at least two end tags: one mid-credits scene involving Jennifer Coolidge’s Vice Principal Marlene and her Nitwit Villager lover, and a formal post-credits scene that introduces Alex, who, like Steve, is one of the default character skins players can use in that Minecraft game.
The mid-credits scene introduces Matt Berry (of What We Do in the Shadows fame) as the voice of the Nitwit Villager who learns Marlene’s language to be closer to her. Hess confirms a recent Puck report that revealed Berry was an early contender for the role of Steve before Black was cast.
“It didn’t work out due to so many things,” Hess says. “This happens in movies all the time, scheduling. He was on his hit show, What We Do in the Shadows, and the [Hollywood strikes] and everything. Movies just evolve in so many crazy, unexpected ways. But it was like, man, we wanted him to be a part of it no matter what. So bringing him in as the Nitwit was hilarious.”
The post-credits scene also brings in Saturday Night Live alum Kate McKinnon, who worked with Hess on 2015’s Masterminds, as the voice of Alex. Though the character appears off camera, is the intent to bring McKinnon more to the forefront in a sequel? “The sky’s the limit,” Hess says. “We’re just kind of basking in the this one right now. I’m not even thinking about a sequel, even though I know there’s a lot of talk about it. So, yeah, we’ll just have to figure out what the next chapter is.”
A Minecraft Movie is in theaters now.
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