The actor, seen recently in Café Society, is in talks to play the lead in Warner’s adaptation of the popular video game

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Steve Carell is likely to be the first actor to join Warner Bros’s Minecraft movie, which adapts the bestselling Mojang game for the big screen.

Minecraft film release date blocked in for 2019 Read more

The film will be directed by It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star Rob McElhenney, who wrote the screenplay alongside Wonder Woman writer Jason Fuchs.

Minecraft, which was first released in 2009, is an avatar game that allows players to create their own characters and environments using textured cubes to vanquish nighttime monsters. Some 106m copies of the game had been sold by summer this year. Minecraft is the bestselling PC game to date and the second bestselling video game of all time, after Tetris.

The studio acquired the movie rights in February; the film is set to be released on 25 May 2019.

Other forthcoming video game adaptations include Assassin’s Creed, reuniting Macbeth’s Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard and director Justin Kurzel; Call of Duty, Pokémon Go, Fruit Ninja, Monster Hunter, Sonic the Hedgehog, Tetris and a reboot of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, produced by and starring Alicia Vikander.