Minecraft becomes biggest film of 2025, driving April box office boom
Warner Bros Pictures’ A Minecraft Movie grossed £52m in the UK and Ireland in April, becoming the highest-grossing film of the year amid a superb April for cinema.
Total box office revenue last month surpassed £100m — a 65% year-on-year increase, according to latest figures from Comscore.
Year-to-date revenue is now 13% ahead of the same period last year, a substantial improvement following a weak March.
Indeed, A Minecraft Movie on its own grossed nearly the same total as all films in March combined. It is set to become the highest-grossing video game adaptation of all time, assuming it continues its strong run to surpass 2023’s The Super Mario Bros Movie (£54.9m).
Tom Linay, content business director at cinema sales house Digital Cinema Media (DCM), called A Minecraft Movie an “amazing result” and noted that a “fairly decent” 37% of its audience comprised the coveted 16-34 age bracket, despite the title being aimed at children.
Given the success, Linay suggested advertisers consider targeting comparable video game adaptations even if they are aimed at young audiences, as established intellectual property like Minecraft and Mario have been around long enough for its core audience to have begun ageing into higher-consumption brackets.
Linay estimated that admissions were also up substantially year on year in April and are tracking at least +6% year to date (official admissions figures will be released later this month).
DCM’s own revenue is currently forecast to grow by 8% in Q2, after substantial 33% growth in Q1, with overall H1 growth expected at 15%.
“We haven’t had a bad week since [upfronts]”, remarked Linay.
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Meanwhile, Ryan Coogler’s substantially less family-friendly (but more highly acclaimed) vampire drama-horror Sinners also beat expectations, drawing £8.7m after its first two weeks.
According to Linay, the film had 0% audience drop-off from its first to second week — a rarity that suggests Sinners‘ popularity has grown through word of mouth.
Other top films in April included Six the Musical (£5.6m), Rami Malek thriller The Amateur (£4m) and March holdover Disney’s Snow White (£3.9m in April to reach £11.3m year to date).
Apart from A Minecraft Movie‘s blowout success, April’s positive year-on-year result was attributed by Linay to the Easter holiday coming later than is typical.
Looking ahead, he expects a solid performance among films in May, before an “absolutely ridiculous” June and July.
Disney’s latest Marvel film, The Thunderbolts, opened this week and will be followed at the weekend by Bluey at the Cinema: Let’s Play Chef Collection.
Following a quieter week after that, Paramount’s Mission: Impossible is back with The Final Reckoning on 21 May alongside Disney’s latest live action film, Lilo & Stitch. They are followed by Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme (Universal), which debuts on 23 May.
Major titles opening in the summer include Brad Pitt racing drama F1, Danny Boyle’s horror sequel 28 Years Later, Dreamworks’ How to Train Your Dragon, Pixar’s Elio, a new Jurassic World sequel and two more superhero flicks: DC’s Superman and Marvel’s Fantastic Four: First Steps.