'A Minecraft Movie' made a beloved video game mainstream. YouTubers had already turned it into an empire.

ANAHEIM, Calif. — A Minecraft Movie is the biggest film of 2025 in the U.S. so far, topping the box office and making headlines for the popcorn-throwing anarchy unleashed upon theaters. But long before it was a cinematic phenomenon, Minecraft was a game beloved by its players — and the bedrock of a whole ecosystem of content creators.

“It’s a sandbox game. It’s kind of like Lego, so … you can build anything you want [and] you can do anything you want,” Dream, a 25-year-old from Florida who shares videos of himself playing Minecraft on YouTube for his 32 million subscribers, told Yahoo at the creator convention VidCon. “I’ve gotten bored of different aspects of Minecraft since I’ve played for a long time, but there’s so many different things you can do.”

Now, like Dream, you can get famous on YouTube for creating content based within the video game. You can also get famous for creating content about the content that has been created in Minecraft. You can also get famous for creating content about the creators who make content in Minecraft. If you create a movie based on Minecraft and then reference the content that has been made inside Minecraft and the creators who produced it, you just might have a blockbuster on your hands.

The bestselling video game of all time

To say Minecraft wasn’t mainstream before the movie is a stretch — just look at Dream or any of his friends who have millions of subscribers of their own. It’s the bestselling video game of all time, and as of 2025, it has nearly 170 million monthly active players.

The crux of the game is pretty easy to understand. As Dream explained, it’s basically virtual Legos. Players must “mine” for materials known as “blocks” to build tools and structures. Depending on what mode you choose, you might have to defend those structures from villainous creatures like “creepers” or “skeletons” or other players. To “win,” you have to kill the “Ender Dragon.”

Minecraft fans dressed as "villagers" at the Polaris Convention in 2023. (Georg Wendt/Picture Alliance via Getty Images)

Players can add “mods” to tweak how the game is played in every possible way. You can make yourself more powerful, add more weird creatures to the game or introduce entirely new worlds.

Because there are so many possible ways to play, tons of creators are able to coexist, entertaining the masses without seeming stale. Speedrunning, or trying to win the game as quickly as possible, is popular. Some of Dream’s most recent videos include “Minecraft Speedrunner VS $100,000 Bounty Hunter” and “I Coded My Friend Into Minecraft ... (to speedrun).” He easily surpasses 1 million views with every upload onto YouTube.

‘As many eyes on Minecraft as possible is always good’

Creators like Dream go viral, collaborate with other players, create complex role-playing storylines in the game and form inside jokes that are then adopted by the community. A prime example is the “chicken jockey,” which is a glitch in the game that causes a zombie to appear on top of a chicken.

The mere mention of the concept in A Minecraft Movie inspired so much enthusiasm in theaters, people would scream and throw popcorn, wreaking havoc in public. Fans were really excited to feel seen, especially in mainstream entertainment, which often overlooks the nuances of internet culture.

The "chicken jockey" image that incites chaos at A Minecraft Movie screenings. (Warner Bros./Courtesy of Everett Collection)

The joke song “Steve’s Lava Chicken,” which is inspired by concepts introduced in the game and performed by Jack Black in A Minecraft Movie, is the shortest song ever to hit the Billboard Hot 100 at just 34 seconds. Two months later, it’s still No. 1 on the Top Movie Songs chart. YouTuber CG5 performed a cover of the song onstage at VidCon’s Hall of Fame event to raucous applause.

The myriad ways to engage with Minecraft have long been confined to the internet. With the success of the movie and its breakout song, it has officially infiltrated traditional entertainment.

Given how well movies with familiar intellectual property like video games and comic books tend to do at the box office, it’s kind of shocking that a Minecraft movie didn’t hit theaters until 2025. But it has been in development since 2014, shifting directors, producers and story drafts multiple times.

It’s possible that Hollywood — or at least the suits at Warner Bros. — knew that the movie would have to strike the perfect chord between fan service and a coherent package that could be understood by curious moviegoers and parents alike. They landed on director Jared Hess, best known for absurd comedies like Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre. To Dream, that was the ideal choice.

Director Jared Hess at the premiere of A Minecraft Movie. (Neil Mockford/FilmMagic via Getty Images)

“I think they did a great job. It seemed like they sought out to be a cringey-funny movie, and … it was cringey and it was funny. I enjoyed myself when I was at the theater,” Dream said. “A lot of people watched it, so I think as many eyes on Minecraft as possible is always good. I love seeing Minecraft have a resurgence or have more people revisiting it.”

‘It seems like I was paranoid’

As the game’s most popular creator, Dream knows a thing or two about its fan army.

For much of his career, he was a “faceless” YouTuber. He played the game while commentating on what was going on via voice-over and wore a smiley face mask to obscure his identity. He amassed millions of followers who have written fan fiction about him and sent police to his house, developing a parasocial relationship with him before he ever revealed his face.

Dream at VidCon. (Yahoo News)

“It seems like I was paranoid, but … when I did leave my house, I did literally go in my car under a blanket. I knew people had doxxed me and found out my address,” Dream said. “There were drones outside my house … the windows in my house had curtains all over.”

When he finally revealed his face, it was because he wanted to connect with people and hang out with his friends. It didn’t go over great, and people teased him for his appearance, having built up a different mental picture of him on their own. He went from being anonymous with tens of millions of subscribers to being recognized everywhere he went.

At VidCon, fans lined up down the hallway and around the corner to hear Dream’s fireside chat, where he demonstrated a project he’s been working on that allows people to upload 3D versions of themselves into Minecraft and physically play it.

‘Everyone who’s a fan already kind of knew about it’

Dream isn’t the only Minecraft YouTuber with a massive fanbase. There are tons of creators shaping the game's future with its players more than any Hollywood blockbuster.

Aidan Weiss, a 23-year-old YouTuber from Nevada whose channel is called Skip the Tutorial, has been making Minecraft content since he was 15.

“[Minecraft] is a giant sandbox, so our videos are meant to help you get used to doing anything that you want to be doing there. I particularly love getting to showcase what you can do with your friends, whether that’s different ways to prank them … or different ways to have build hacks that you can go show off,” he told Yahoo Entertainment while at VidCon meeting fans.

Weiss knew he wanted to be a YouTuber since he was about 5 years old and as he got older dabbled in video editing, offering to help other creators edit their content for free. He first went viral after making a video about a mod he created that turned every Minecraft block into the same white texture, making it difficult to play the game.

He was in high school then, so he didn’t think much about monetizing and turning the game into his career until another YouTuber told him he should. Since then he’s gone viral countless times with videos like “25 Ways to Destroy Your Friendships in Minecraft” and “179 Incredible Minecraft Build Hacks.”

Like Dream's, Aidan’s career is inextricably linked to Minecraft, yet the blockbuster movie about it didn’t really change his life at all.

“Everyone who’s a fan already kind of knew about it … I mean, I hear people say ‘chicken jockey’ a lot more,” he laughed.

It’s nice that more people recognize the name and gist of the game now, but it’s their world. We’ve just entered the portal.