‘Chicken jockey’: How films are becoming events again

Photo Collage by Emily Paris, Photo Editor

There are no rules in “Minecraft.” The best-selling video game of this century gives players the freedom to explore, create or destroy. But since the release of the game’s movie adaptation, fans have been bringing this freedom — specifically the ‘destroy’ aspect — to real-life theaters nationwide. 

“It hasn't slowed down since opening weekend,” junior film studies major and Regal Cinemas employee Justin Choi told the Panther two weeks after the film premiered. “Especially on the weekends when all the kids and teenagers aren’t in school, they’re coming to the ‘Minecraft’ movie.” 

You might already be familiar with the viral trend, which sees audiences cheering and throwing popcorn across the theater when Jack Black says the phrase “chicken jockey” in “A Minecraft Movie.” You probably saw the video from April 11 in which someone brought an actual chicken into the theater. After clips of the line from the trailer started going viral, the trend skyrocketed during the film’s opening weekend on April 4-6, which saw a $163 million domestic and $313 million global debut. Theater employees knew the film would be a hit, but what they didn’t expect was how destructive the trend would become. 

“I'm usually up at the box office, but we've been so understaffed and unprepared for this that I’ve had to fill in the role of an usher,” said Choi. “It's just as bad as you expect. Every theater is absolutely flooded from row to row with popcorn or other junk. We’ve had soda and ice cream thrown all over the place.”

He continued: “One day, someone came out with his hair completely covered in silly string. There’s also been incidents of people getting into fights because of the popcorn throwing. And it takes at least 25 to 35 minutes for six people to clean an entire theater room.”

Reports of theaters adding pre-show warnings, keeping track of the exact timestamps of the moment for employees to step in and even preventing groups of boys under 18 from entering the theater without a parent have also made their rounds online, with police intervening on multiple occasions. Black himself even surprised an audience at AMC Century City 15, asking them not to throw popcorn. 

“It's gotten to a point where my managers will be like, ‘Anytime you see a young group going to ‘Minecraft,’ tell them that we're going to be watching if they’re throwing popcorn and we’ll be very strict about it,’” Choi told The Panther.

It’s no secret that this viral event contributed to the film’s unprecedented box office success, and to no one’s surprise, the director of the film couldn’t be more excited about it. 

Jared Hess, known for “Napoleon Dynamite” and “Nacho Libre” (which marked his first collaboration with Black), told Entertainment Weekly: “It's funny because I think it's just literally cheering and throwing popcorn, which is so funny to me that cops are getting called for popcorn. Yeah, it's hilarious. I've seen so many funny videos… But, man, I'm just glad people are making memories with their friends and families."

In 2023, “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer" both vastly overperformed at the box office after the viral trend “Barbenheimer” sent audiences flocking to theaters for photos in costumes and a five-hour-long double feature of the films. That same year, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” became the highest-grossing video game adaptation of all time (“A Minecraft Movie” is now in second place) after the film’s hit song “Peaches” debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 and hashtags like #SuperMarioMovie garnered millions of views on social platforms. Granted, these are intellectual property (IP)-based films that have built-in audiences, but plenty of other IP-based films like “The Flash” and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” that did not build up traction on the internet failed at the box office. Viral engagement paired with pre-existing fandoms is clearly a path to success, but it’s not something studios can fabricate from within.

“Look, you can't make something go viral,” entertainment marketing professor Russell Schwartz told the Panther. “It's impossible to do that. It doesn't happen by anybody's wit. Barbenheimer didn't happen because a studio exec came up with that word. It just sort of evolved. Some kid came up with it and it stuck, right? Nothing to do with the studio. I think (“A Minecraft Movie”) was a big surprise, but you're still tapping into a nostalgic vibe because all these kids grew up with it. It's still very relevant to them.”

Many believe the “chicken jockey” trend is disrespectful and destructive, while others see it as bringing excitement back to the theater-going experience. But interacting with films in theaters is nothing new; screenings of the 1975 cult classic “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” have encouraged fans to dress up as their favorite characters, shout lines and throw food during the film for decades. A trend similar to “chicken jockey” occurred in 2022 when groups of fans dressed up in suits and disrupted screenings of “Minions: The Rise of Gru.” Last December, showings of “Wicked” sparked online discussion after videos of people singing along during the movie went viral, leading theaters to create special “sing-along” showings. In similar fashion, AMC theaters started showing screenings of ‘A Minecraft Movie - The Block-Party Edition’ on May 2, encouraging fans to sing (and scream) along with the film. Trends like these help big-budget films reach box-office success in a decade that has seen countless IP-based studio films flop and audiences choosing to wait for streaming.

“The movie business will survive because it’s eventizing everything,” said Schwartz. “The only films that work are the ones that you eventize.”

Viral movie-going events work especially well because these trends consistently find and appeal to Gen Z on social platforms. Despite their attention span being shared with user-generated content and the ever-growing video game industry, Gen Z still goes to the movies more than other generations. 

“The movie theater is still a place of salvation — to get away from family, get out of the house, be with your friends,” Schwartz told the Panther. “I mean, it's great. Which is why I think movies will never go away. The question is, what's gonna bring them in? But I don’t believe that people do not go to a movie because it’s coming to a streaming service. Gen Z — they’re not waiting for it to come home. They want to go out and see it now. That’s never gonna change.”