Australian cinemas are embracing the Minecraft movie “chicken jockey” phenomenon sweeping across the country, even as footage continues to emerge of wild behaviour at Melbourne screenings this week.
A theatre in Melbourne’s outer east became one of the latest settings for the global trend, which sees mostly young audiences cheering and throwing food and drinks in the air during a scene in A Minecraft Movie where a character utters the words “chicken jockey”.
Footage posted to TikTok appears to show a patron setting off a smoke bomb at Eastland Hoyts in Ringwood during a screening on Tuesday night.
“They brought smoke bombs, fire extinguishers and fire crackers,” said the TikTok account.
The footage also shows a discarded fire extinguisher and shopping centre security.
Palace Cinemas was prepared for the cultural phenomenon when it arrived in Australia last week, even buying industrial vacuums to help clean up the mess after each screening.
“I went to our Church Street cinema in Brighton … to observe this trend happening, and from what I could see, it was really good-natured and really good fun,” Palace CEO Benjamin Zeccola said.
“We’ve brought in some industrial garden vacuums that are designed to mulch leaves, but we’re using them to suck up popcorn!”
Zeccola said Palace had rostered on extra staff to handle the cleaning and supervise the screenings.
“If they seem to be unaccompanied kids, then we will station a staff member inside the room, and if they’re obvious troublemakers, they’re spoken to beforehand and monitored closely,” he said.
Honey, Sophie, Lola, Raf, Nikki, Chiara and CEO of Palace Cinemas Ben Zeccola taking part in the Minecraft movie craze, where punters throw popcorn in the air at the Chicken Jockey scene.Credit: PENNY STEPHENS
“But most of them are just having a great time, and what we love about it is it’s the sense of communal cinema. And it’s also got a cohort of young people talking about cinema.”
Zeccola said what had happened at Ringwood was “unacceptable”, and Palace was looking into an incident at a screening in Coburg on Monday where a patron threw an egg. He said the matter had been referred to the police.
“Every cinema screen costs about $50,000 and they cannot be fixed,” he said. “I worry about independent cinemas copping a coke spill.
“Throw the popcorn … The M&M’s can fly, that’s fine, but please nothing near the screen and nothing that does permanent damage.”
Jack Black, Jason Momoa and Sebastian Hansen in A Minecraft Movie.Credit: AP
Cinema Association of Australia’s executive director Cameron Mitchell agreed that local reactions hadn’t been as extreme as those seen overseas.
“Whilst there has been a lot of reporting internationally about Gen Z and Gen Alpha exploding with excitement during selected scenes, in Australia, we are seeing the same level of enthusiasm without the extreme responses that are being reported in the US,” he told The Age.
“We welcome enthusiastic audiences, which adds to the appeal of the film … of course requesting that our cinema guests are respectful of others in the audience.
Credit: Matt Golding
“If you think back to The Rocky Horror Picture Show era … Minions or more recently the Barbenheimer phenomena, the cinema industry locally is supportive of anything that enhances the cinema-going experience.”
Mitchell said A Minecraft Movie had generated $480 million in box office takings since it opened in Australia. It has bested Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) to become the biggest video-game adaptation opening ever.
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