Why do people shiver with antici… pation before Jack Black says “Chicken jockey!” in A Minecraft Movie? Black’s much-memed delivery of the line, which was previously teased in a trailer for the Warner Bros. box-office blockbuster, has been causing chaos in movie theaters around the world. Audiences are yelling the phrase (which is a Minecraft term for the rare occurrence of a baby zombie riding on a chicken), throwing popcorn in the air, getting to their feet to applaud, and — of course — holding their phones up to record the chaos. Some corners of the internet have begun suggesting that this film is Gen Z and Gen Alpha’s version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a cult classic film known for boisterous screenings. “I saw Minecraft in the theater with my kids last night and am still processing what I saw,” actor Roger Clark tweeted on April 6. “The only cinematic experience I can compare the audience participation to is Rocky Horror, except it’s with teenagers and their phones and the movie is not even a weekend old.”
Reports of rowdy behavior have been trickling in since the movie, which also stars Jason Momoa, arrived in theaters on April 4. Filmmaker and YouTuber The Kino Corner described witnessing a crowd of mostly middle schoolers erupt “into sheer pandemonium” when they heard the “chicken jockey” line during an April 4 screening at an AMC theater in Austin, Texas. “Kids were cheering, clapping, and jumping onto the tops of seats,” he tweeted. “Whenever Jack Black sang, the kids would get up and start dancing in the aisles. They acted like this wasn’t a movie, but a rock concert.” A TikTok posted by @salesmenpod showed the aftermath of another opening-night screening in Seaford, New York where a group of kids ended up getting escorted out of a theater by police. And on April 5, a New Jersey theater stated on Facebook that minors will no longer be able to see A Minecraft Movie without parent supervision, alleging that a large group of “unsupervised boys engaged in completely unacceptable behavior, including vandalism” during a showing the night before.
Although crowds are reacting to moments throughout the film, “chicken jockey” has emerged as the face of this audience-participation trend; British cinema operator Cineworld recently announced special “Chicken Jockey screenings” in 4DX where audiences will be free to dress up and engage in “whooping, clapping and shouting ‘Chicken Jockey’ as you see fit!” All this over a viral moment? The children really do yearn for the mines the memes.
