Those adorably conniving twinkie-esque Oompa-Loompas on crack known as Minions from Dreamworks’ 2010 CG animated family film Despicable Me are getting a sequel all to themselves. According to Deadline, Universal has re-teamed with Chris Meledandri’s Illumination Entertainment for a feature spinoff based on The Minions as its fifth feature film with Universal.
The as-yet-untitled film will represent the third feature in the ‘Despicable’ universe, with the original film’s direct sequel Despicable Me 2 starring the voice of Steve Carrell as golden hearted evil genius Gru already in post-production. The Minions already have three short films devoted to them, but this will be a 90-minute theatrical release featuring all new characters and an origin story for the yellow, pill-shaped scene stealers. The script is already written by Brian Lynch, and Pierre Coffin, director of Despicable 1 and 2, will direct and Kyle Balda will co-direct. This is very appropriate, as director Coffin is also the primary vocal artist for the Minions.
Despicable Me was made on an exceptionally modest $69 million budget, while grossing over $540 million worldwide and being spun off into the Orlando theme park ride Despicable Me Minion Mayhem. With Despicable Me 2 in post-production, Dreamworks should not experience much difficulty in finding an appropriate time gap in which to wait to release the Minions feature, as they have yet to begin pre-production on the spin-off. Despicable Me 2 co-stars the voices of Kristen Wiig and Al Pacino and is set for July 3, 2013.
Renaud is exec producing, with Meledandri and Janet Healy producing. The CG 3D animation will be done in Paris by Illumination Mac Guff. The film is tentatively scheduled for a 2014 release.
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