Sanctioned ‘chicken jockey’ chaos at ‘A Minecraft Movie’: Costumes and connection — but no popcorn throwing

Flying popcorn. Screaming patrons getting into fights. At least one live chicken was reported on the scene. No, this wasn’t a taping of The Jerry Springer Show. This was an average screening of A Minecraft Movie.

For weeks, reports of pandemonium in screenings of A Minecraft Movie have made headlines. News outlets stoked moral panic, suggesting that kids are so poorly behaved and beholden to trends, the film was inciting anarchy.

As chaos reigned, the film became the No. 1 movie in the U.S. for two weeks, dethroned for the first time since its April 4 release by Ryan Coogler’s well-reviewed original vampire movie, Sinners (which makes for a whiplash-inducing double feature, I learned firsthand). A Minecraft Movie has earned $720 million at the box office worldwide, with a long way to go.

Regal theaters announced that “chicken jockey” screenings, named after the phrase in the movie that triggered havoc in theaters like a sleeper agent activation code, would take place on April 20 — the sacred intersection of Easter Sunday and, well, 420. For one day, “customers are invited to dress up as their favorite Minecraft characters, whoop, yelp, clap and shout Chicken Jockey,” per the theater chain’s website. They only asked that people “don’t go full creeper in the auditorium,” which was not explained.

At a time when theater owners are more invested in getting butts in seats than ever before, could they harness the whimsy of the “chicken jockey” internet trend to get the phone-addicted masses to commune around the big screen for two consecutive hours? Or does getting the industry involved in something organic ruin the joke, especially two weeks after its inception? I bought a ticket to a Regal inside a Queens, N.Y., mall to find out.

I was skeptical about whether people would show up in the real world for sanctioned chaos, especially as the theater remained about half full for 15 minutes’ worth of preshow ads for Legos and phones, but it filled to capacity by the time the movie started.

As the lights dimmed, voices of all ages, from confused kids to confused parents and plenty of upbeat fans in the age ranges between, created a dull roar in the theater. It was rarely loud enough to interfere with sound quality, but always humming. The dark auditorium was constantly dotted with the lights of phone screens as patrons continued to casually check their messages throughout the screening.

Into the Inferno…

What has made this movie the most successful video game adaptation to date is that it’s a movie for fans. That’s why the mere mention of a “chicken jockey,” a rare in-game fluke in which a baby zombie rides on the back of a chicken, leads to cheers and popcorn throwing. It shows that the people who made the movie cared enough about the source material to sneak in lines for real fans.

I asked my 23-year-old brother, a member of the generation that grew up with cultural knowledge of Minecraft hanging in the air like the common cold, what references I should make to my fellow attendees to show that my careful studying of them is pure of heart. Tapping into his “brain rot,” as he called it, he suggested I mention Technoblade. He was a widely adored Minecraft content creator who died of cancer in 2022.

My experience at this screening wouldn’t have been the same without Gloria, the 15-year-old girl sitting three seats away from me. (I didn’t ask for last names from any of the attendees, as I didn’t want their fandom to impact their future college applications.)

“That’s Technoblade,” she said to her parents, sitting between us, when a pig wearing a crown appeared onscreen. Her quiet commentary on the movie — explaining references, rooting for a romance between Jason Momoa and Jack Black’s characters, her soft exclamation of “Diva!” when a female character did something impressive — kept me fully in the loop. She was the Virgil to my Dante through the nine circles of Minecraft uncertainty hell, and she didn’t even know it until I told her after the screening.

When I spoke to Gloria and her parents, she said she’d been a big fan of Minecraft since elementary school. Her friends told her about funny moments in the movie, so she wanted to see it for herself. She used to watch Minecraft stories on YouTube — original narratives from creators that take place in the game’s world — but she doesn’t play as much as she used to. Still, she wanted to see it bad enough to bring her parents along.

“I paid for it,” her dad interjected. He didn’t know what 4DX meant until the preview for How to Train Your Dragon nearly bucked him out of his seat.

At the screening, dialogue and banter never got many laughs — with the exception of Jennifer Coolidge’s character, whose flirtatious scenes with a villager who escaped into the real world roused the audience. Her humor was random, and the more specific her references, the better — for instance, the mention of her car being a “Jeep Grand Cherokee” got a big response.

There were outsize reactions to physical comedy from Black and Momoa — especially a scene where they form a “man sandwich” by hanging on to each other while flying through the air. (“Gay rights!” Gloria exclaimed in response.) The crowd roared whenever Black performed an action scene. He is basically Tom Cruise for the Minecraft generation.

Most of the big reactions the film stirred in its audience were from in-game references. People cheered, as they were encouraged to do, but they also looked to the person they came with, whispered and giggled. It fostered discussion, further jokes and community.

Emily, a 26-year-old sitting in front of me who brought her younger brother and his friends, said Minecraft was a family affair. She doesn’t play or even think about the game much anymore, but she told her brother about it when they were younger. Now he plays with his friends.

A costumed group of friends, chaperoned by one of their parents, sat toward the front. Daniel, who is 15, wore a box on his head to portray Steve — Black’s character in the movie. He was nervous about the film living up to his expectations, but he’d heard good things online and was intrigued by the “moving seats.” Kelly, wearing a chicken onesie and sitting to his left, told me that they wanted to come “for the screaming.” Parker, the 12-year-old sitting to his right, loved seeing the villager portrayed onscreen, as well as the woodland mansion.

Luciano, an 18-year-old wearing suspenders as a reference to a popular Minecraft skin, said he’s been playing since he was 5 or 6. He was beaming with excitement that the movie had lived up to his expectations. He sat with his friend Jayden, a 17-year-old wearing the blocky green head of a zombie. They both quickly went silent as an unexpected post-credits scene played, setting up intrigue for a possible sequel.

On my way in, I spoke with two 19-year-olds who wandered into the movie as Regal Unlimited pass holders looking to kill time while waiting for a text that their table was ready at another restaurant in the mall. Roman and Isaac wander in and out of screenings all the time because their pass makes it cheap to do so — there’s a monthly subscription fee that covers the cost of tickets, with a small service charge for each screening — and they had already seen the second half of the movie because they’d popped into a theater a few days ago. They were upbeat and excited, especially for the 4DX seats, but were long gone by the time the movie ended.

All the fans I talked to were excited about the 4DX element of this screening, which turned the theater into an amusement park ride.

In an early action sequence in which villainous skeleton creatures rode on the backs of giant spiders to antagonize the main characters, one small child loudly asserted, “I banged my head.” I did too. At one point, a woman left her seat to sit in the aisle, stretching out and chatting with the person next to her in his seat. I was amazed by her boldness, but my husband, who came to the screening with me, noted that she was probably a bit seasick.

Some sequences were intense — there were kicks to the back of our chairs, abrupt bucking, swerving and bursts of air. Theater owners are hoping that the thrills of the specialized seats might entice people to come to the theater. I’ve seen several screenings of action movies in 4DX, like Twisters and Novocaine, but none were as relentless as A Minecraft Movie. The dull roar of chatter I noticed at the beginning of the screening died down by the end, especially from little kids, who were likely jostled into submission and physically exhausted. Come to think of it, I didn’t see many phones toward the end either — it’s possible they would have gone flying.

Altogether, it was the most intense theatrical experience I’ve ever had. More than 12 hours later, I’m still sore from trying to stay in my seat while taking notes. The physical action, paired with a visual feast of niche references and controlled anarchy, kept a smile on my face. “If young people want to go to the movies to make memories, build them a temple to do it,” Vulture’s Nicholas Quah wrote in a dispatch from his own magic-mushroom-aided Minecraft screening. I agree.

Come as you are

In response to Regal’s “chicken jockey” screenings, skeptics online noted that sanctioned whimsy creates a paradox — once you regulate the fun, you remove the spontaneity. But I didn’t find that at my screening. People were just happy to see something made for them. I don’t even know the game, and my jaw still hurts from smiling throughout the entire experience. Maybe the way to get Gen Z into the theater is just to let them come as they are.

There has to be a way to balance enthusiasm for theatrical events like A Minecraft Movie and Barbenheimer without torturing the people who work there, and this may be a step in the right direction. On my way out, I spoke to three Regal employees lined up outside the door, poised to start cleaning as the theater cleared out.

“Nobody even threw popcorn,” I told them.

“This was the one screening where you could have,” one employee responded matter-of-factly.