I consider myself a tough cookie when it comes to cinema experiences. Fritz Lang’s two-and-a-half-hour silent Metropolis? In a freezing cold cathedral? On a glute-torturing wooden pew? With an improvised organ soundtrack? Please, take my money! I’ve stayed up till dawn watching zombie movie marathons in a Leeds flea pit, glugging bad coffee until I could feel my eyeballs vibrate.
When the Japanese horror film Audition was causing outbreaks of fainting with its extended torture scenes in the early 2000s, I hunkered down in my aisle seat as queasy audience members scrambled across me to escape. (This was even more awkward than it sounds, because I was heavily pregnant at the time.) I am, in short, willing to put up with a lot for the sake of the movies.
Last week, though, I went soft. I needed to watch A Minecraft Movie, figuring that someone who writes about culture really ought to have seen 2025’s biggest film — so far, the videogame adaptation has grossed $550 million (£418 million) worldwide. This despite reviewers calling it an “egregious IP cash-in”, “blockheaded” and (in a rare no-star review by Kevin Maher for this paper) “unforgivable”.
So I bought myself a ticket to the plushest, poshest cinema I could get to, making the calculation that if the price was eye-watering to me, it would also deter the tween and teen hordes. Because Minecraft isn’t just a hit: it’s a social phenomenon. Audiences aren’t going to watch the movie so much as to participate in a mass ritual of misbehaviour.
A lot of this focuses on the two-word phrase “chicken jockey”, which is hollered with full conviction by Jack Black at a crucial juncture in the film (inasmuch as any juncture of this film can be considered crucial, which it can’t). The chicken jockey itself comes from the original game: it’s a rare and prized event when a baby zombie character spawns on the back of a hen.
None of that will matter to you, or even necessarily make sense, if you don’t care about Minecraft. But if you do care about Minecraft — if, say, you’re a console-reared Gen Alpha who’s been playing it since you acquired fine motor skills — it will matter to you enormously. And since Minecraft has sold over 300 million copies, there are a lot of those kids about.
In cinemas, “chicken jockey” has become the cue for the crowds to go wild: shouting, throwing popcorn, sitting on each other’s shoulders and even — though I had to see the video of this one to believe that it happened — holding a real-life chicken aloft in triumph. Hence my bougie theatre act of cowardice: I’ll suffer for filmgoing, but I draw the line at poultry.
For cinemas, this is a problem. Minecraft mania is forcing them to lay on extra staff — partly for cleaning up, partly so there’s someone to intervene when audience participation threatens to spill into outright vandalism. Some have imposed bans on unaccompanied children or groups of boys. Police were called to a theatre in Wasilla, Alaska, to remove a particularly rowdy bunch of teens.
But it’s also a problem that they have to embrace, however reluctantly: 2025 has not been great for the film business, which increasingly relies on a few big hitters, usually from established franchises, to keep the lights on. This year, Marvel’s Captain America: Brave New World has done so-so, and the live action Snow White from Disney is a confirmed flop. Cinemas really needed chicken jockey.
And in a hopeful sign, A Minecraft Movie has managed to reach an audience that studios were fearful of losing altogether. Today’s teenagers are streaming natives, raised on snack-size morsels of instant gratification. Getting them to show up to a scheduled screening of a feature is an achievement in itself, especially considering that cinemas were closed entirely by lockdown for some of their formative years.
Given that, maybe it’s not a surprise that this cohort seems cut loose from filmgoing etiquette. Not that it’s just youngsters: a few weeks ago, I shared a cinema with a full-grown adult who was filing his nails during a Japanese noir, which is not only disgusting but also, unforgivably, noisy. A screening of The Last Showgirl was completely ruined by a drunk woman screaming “WE LOVE YOU, PAMMY” every time Pamela Anderson was on screen.
Nor is there anything entirely new about people misbehaving in the stalls — back in the 1950s, newspapers reported breathlessly on teddy boys tearing up the seats at screenings of Rock Around the Clock in a rock’n’roll-induced hysteria. As long as there has been youth culture, there have been social contagions (and moral panics) focused on the cinema.
That means chicken jockey is a throwback but it’s also the future of cinema, and arguably a depressing one. A poor film — although I invite anyone who thinks this is the worst film ever to come to the next zombie all-nighter with me: I’ve seen Uwe Boll movies you people wouldn’t believe — is elevated to an event, turning the profit that keeps the industry ticking over for another year.
I prefer the optimism of A Minecraft Movie’s director, Jared Hess, though. He has welcomed the chaos as a sign that “people are finding joy in going back to cinemas and seeing things as a community” rather than being “isolated on our devices”. Filmgoing should be a collective experience: that’s why bad seats, bad patrons and even bad films can’t keep me away. But please, leave your chicken at home.
