MINIONS & MONSTERS BOMBS WITH FRANCHISE-LOW $61M DEBUT
The yellow guys slipped on a banana peel! The new Despicable Me prequel tanked harder than anyone expected over the July 4th weekend.
OUCH! The Minions are in trouble. According to Variety and Deadline, "Minions & Monsters"—a 1920s Hollywood-set prequel set in the beloved animated "Despicable Me" universe—arrived at the box office with a franchise-low $61.4 million over the five-day July 4th weekend. That's WAY below projections, folks. The well-reviewed family flick managed just $36.4 million during the traditional three-day frame, pulling from 4,243 North American locations.
So what went wrong? The animated franchise that once ruled summer is suddenly feeling… tired? The underperformance is especially brutal when you consider the holiday weekend should've been PACKED with families looking for fun. Even with positive reviews in hand, audiences just weren't reaching for their tickets to catch the Minions' roaring-twenties adventure.
It's not all doom and gloom for the studio just yet—Deadline reminds us that declaring the total death of a franchise after one slip-up is premature. Still, this is a MAJOR wake-up call for Universal and Illumination. The Minions have been box-office gold for years, so expect some serious soul-searching about what's next for these iconic little troublemakers!
Sources · Variety · Deadline