Minecraft developer kills Kickstarted Minecraft movie

Gaming rock star Notch, the man behind the childhood-devouring mega-smash Minecraft, has pulled the plug on a fan movie based on the game.

The film, titled “Birth of Man” was to be crowdfunded. A Kickstarter begging page started off well enough, gathering a little over ten per cent of its $US600,000 goal.

But things went downhill quickly once Notch, real name Markus Persson, emitted the following Tweet.

We don't allow half a million kickstarters based on our ip without any deals in place. :/

— Markus Persson (@notch) February 7, 2014

And that, as they say in the funnies, is all folks! With a single Tweet Persson killed off the movie.

Backers are sanguine, seemingly because many are Minecraft fans and get Notch's motives.

Perhaps, however, we're all the poorer for Notch's actions as film-maker Brandon Laatsch promised the project would deliver “a reinvention of the filmmaking process” to deliver a look based on Minecraft's pixellated style and interesting physics.

Special effects, he promised, “will be done on PC's, not super-computers” and “Everything will be the opposite of Hollywood, except for the resulting product.” Which now will not come into existence, unless Laatsch and Persson can strike a deal. ®