The artist who created 40 in-game paintings for Minecraft did one of Jack Black as Steve for Minecraft Movie 2, and it’s pretty fantastic

A Minecraft Movie released in Spring 2025 and was an enormous success: even the iffy reviews couldn’t stop it from chicken jockeying its way to almost $1 billion over its theatrical run. That kind of number made a sequel inevitable, and the production has started filming in New Zealand.

Returning star Jack Black, who plays Minecraft’s Steve avatar, has marked the occasion by posting a rather lovely painting of himself to Instagram (thanks, GR+). It depicts the actor as Steve, perched atop a comfy leather chair and holding a blocky flame in his hand, with the caption “and so it begins.” There’s also a skull on the floor, which is a nod to some of the in-game paintings that can be found in Minecraft.

The painting is oil on panel and was created by Swedish artist Kristoffer Zetterstrand, who is also behind 40 paintings that can be found in Minecraft. Zetterstrand also posted some more detailed shots of the painting, and the final image of his post shows the artist in his studio with multiple other Minecraft paintings on the wall, which may just be works-in-progress but could also be a tease for their appearance in A Minecraft Movie 2.

The New Zealand Herald has been breathlessly reporting on the presence of various Hollywood talent in Auckland. Obviously Black is returning, as is co-star Jason Momoa and director Jared Hess, and Jennifer Coolidge has apparently been spotted on-set. The only new star confirmed thus far is MJ herself, Kirsten Dunst, who will play the character Alex and very honestly said she jumped at the chance to be in a film “where I don’t lose money.”

I doubt anything can stop A Minecraft Movie 2 being a commercial juggernaut, though it may struggle to replicate the real-world virality of the first movie’s chicken jockey moment, which had cinemagoers chucking popcorn in the aisles and even, in one case, taking a live chicken to a screening. Even Mojang itself eventually threw up its hands and added the chicken jockey to Minecraft.

Another lightning-in-a-bottle moment was Black’s ditty ‘Steve’s Lava Chicken,’ which at 34 seconds became the shortest song ever to crack the Billboard Hot 100, with my young son contributing to its success by playing it approximately three billion times. A Minecraft Movie 2 is due to release on July 23, 2027.