Universal is having a $5-billion global box office year, but its most dependable animated franchise just posted a number that forced the studio to explain itself.
Illumination’s Minions & Monsters, the seventh film in the Despicable Me universe, earned $523 million worldwide. That is a 44% drop from the $940 million hauled in by 2022’s Minions: The Rise of Gru.
Why the kid audience didn’t follow the reviews
Donna Langley, NBCUniversal chairman, said at Bloomberg Screentime that the film’s love letter to silent-era Hollywood won over critics but left its core audience cold.
“Perhaps for kids that kind of inside baseball, old Hollywood story was a little over their heads,” Langley said.
Universal also knew the “Gentleminions” meme—young men in suits turning The Rise of Gru into a social event—was unlikely to repeat. Langley admitted the studio still assumed Gen Z would show up.
- Critics gave Minions & Monsters the best reviews in the franchise.
- The Gentleminions meme did not return.
- The franchise is 17 years old, and Universal pulled the release date forward rather than letting anticipation build.
Langley said the franchise planning was the miss, not the greenlight: “We miscalculated that for sure.”
Original animation’s new math
That underperformance lands beside a harder industry trend: since the pandemic, only animated sequels and established IP have cleared $500 million globally. DreamWorks’ original Forgotten Island opened to just $13 million in North America against an $80 million budget despite strong reviews.
Langley said these films “have to go through a higher bar of theatricality,” with price points that anticipate lower box office than the pre-pandemic era. The studio wants to stay ahead of audience taste and be honest when a film is not working.
Source: TheWrap
