DEADLINE:How old are your kids?
HESS:Ive got two in college, and then my youngest are 14 and 12.
DEADLINE:Who sparked your interest inMinecraft?
Jack Black and director Jared Hess on the set of ‘A Minecraft Movie’Kristy Griffin/Warner Bros.
HESS:That was my introduction to the game, right when it came out.
DEADLINE:In different ways, you touched the zeitgeist withNapoleon Dynamiteand now again withMinecraftopening bigger thanBarbieandThe Dark Knight.
Whats that feel like, when you hit that vein an the oil comes spraying out of the ground?
Jason Momoa and director Jared Hess on the set of ‘A Minecraft Movie’Kristy Griffin/Warner Bros.
HESS:That you just cant plan for stuff like this.
Thats the best you’re able to hope for.
Whatever happened to that silly bronze statue?
HESS: It got moved to the Fox Searchlight offices that are on the Disney lot.
I remember when it was on the Fox lot, and people would dress it up all the time.
When the pandemic hit, people would send me pictures of Napoleon wearing a mask.
DEADLINE:Too ostentatious for you to buy that statue and put it on your front lawn?
HESS:Now thats terrifying, as it is when you look at it up close.
The gums and the teeth are pretty remarkable.
Hes holding the tetherball.
People would pull the tetherball and have him hold weird stuff.
It was pretty great.
HESS:I stand by that quote as the most truthful thing ever uttered about showbiz.
HESS:Its one of those things.
That was so much of the appeal to me in adapting it.
Jack is playing everything with so much passion.
And he just takes everything to an 11, all the time.
That absurd seriousness about such a ridiculous world is part of the vitality of the comedy.
I think that is what people are celebrating.
They got a question.
And I said, in Jacks voice, Water bucket release!
And dude, that whole classroom just exploded.
Then I said, chicken jockey, and it went bananas again.
But you cant ever anticipate that.
DEADLINE:Jack Black is an interesting dude.
I went and visited Francis Coppola on a night shoot in Atlanta forMegalopolis.
Theres this scruffy guy sitting quietly on a beach chair and someone says, theres Jack Black.
Then I see him onSNLthis past weekend, bouncing off the walls.
HESS:Heres the thing: Jack is the most genuine artist ever.
I would put him on my list of top five greatest athletes of all time.
The dude is so shredded, has so much energy, a crazy amount.
He is one of the hardest workers ever, but hes also the most gracious and compassionate.
Every single person on the crew, he knew all of their names.
And theres hundreds of people.
I dont know, man, hes one of a kind.
There will never be anyone else like him.
Talk about putting these two big personalities together.
HESS:Jason is larger than life.
Hes the biggest hunk of our time, but hes a big nerd.
Nerdy about motorcycles and movies, and hes got the biggest heart.
Hes so stinkin funny.
One of the great things is both of those guys had secret crushes on each other from afar.
Theyd never worked together.
DEADLINE:Obviously, they bought into this preposterous premise and world that you created here.
Those are things that are key things of the game, too.
I thinkMinecraftwas the first IP to hit over a trillion views or something on YouTube.
There is no story.
And we were just like, look, were going to celebrate what we love.
Were going to pick the creatures that we love and build an epic adventure comic around us.
DEADLINE:Why did you never make a sequel toNapoleon Dynamite?
HESS:I dont know.
If youre doing it for the wrong reason.
There was something special about the circumstances that it was made in.
These were characters that Jerusha and I absolutely love and adore.
So further installments would have to be warranted by the characters.
DEADLINE:You could have Pedro, voted in as school president, implementing tariffs?
HESS:A good one, but no.
Take me through that process and your desire to be part of it?
HESS:Oh, man.
Well, it would be so much fun.
Itll be so much fun to go back into the world.
The fans are just having such a good time.
We teased it in the end credits, and the fans seem to be going wild for it.
DEADLINE:Whos the new character driving the nextMinecraft?
HESS:The character we teased is Alex, the other massively critical character inMinecraft.
