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Always Sunny's Rob McElhenney explains why his Minecraft movie deal fell apart

We blame creepers
by rawmeatcowboy
24 February 2020
GN Version 5.0

At one point, Always Sunny's Rob McElhenney was set to direct a Minecraft movie. This would be in partnership with Warner Bros., who was ready to cough up $150 million for the budget. The project was in the works for roughly 2.5 years, and Steve Carrell was attached to star. Then everything just fell apart, and the movie is no more.

McElhenney has finally opened up a bit about his vision for the film, as well as why it was cancelled. He shared some thoughts during the HappySadConfused podcast, where we find out that Warner Bros. chief film output Greg Silverman was replaced by Toby Emmerich. When Emmerich came in, it appears the movie was squashed, and that was that. Sadly, it seems that McElhenney had a great vision for the project, which won't see the light of day.

"I thought one of the greatest assets to Minecraft was they didn't have a fixed narrative. It was an open world experience. All you were essentially give was the building blocks to do whatever you want. I thought, what an amazing tool, much like Legos except now you're talking about infinite possibilities because it's digital, to give to kids--and not just kids, but any person who feels powerless. Kids mostly feel powerless; all day long they're being told what to do, how to dress, do your homework, go to bed."

I felt like that could extend to other people. I think everybody feels marginalized to an extent. Your boss is telling you what to do all day long, or your spouse is. You just feel like you don't have this sense of agency over your own life. The game gave you that, and I thought that's a really profound experience."

[Link]