Top Film Industry Stories of 2013: #6
Minions take over the world
By David Mumpower
January 9, 2014
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Even with the animation houses that I mentioned above, I could list a series of failures such as Flushed Away, Rise of the Guardians and Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole. One may conclude that putting “Guardians” in the title of an animated movie could be a cursed action. That is the silly evaluation. The accurate one is that even projects that look wonderful on paper sometimes fail to a spectacular degree. Do you remember Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas? Of course not. Does Mars Need Moms? Hell no. If I told you there was a movie entitled Quest for Camelot, would you believe me? Movie history is littered with these instances of failure. There is something in our nature that forces people to remember the winners more than the losers, all other things being equal.
Despicable Me was a winner.
The movie was released in July of 2010. Its opening weekend of $56.4 million represented the second best debut of the year by an original property, trailing only Inception. At the time, I attributed its popularity as follows: “In the end, Universal Pictures effectively bought the opening weekend by making the aforementioned Minions omnipresent. If you pull up Facebook, there they are. If you go to Best Buy, there they are. If you turn on a television, well, you get the point. And the key is that they're adorable. If they were annoying and lowest common denominator, the film would have failed, but the marketing campaign correctly deduced how engaging they are as well as the why of it. The advertising understands the heart of the film, and we don't see enough of that these days. This is a tremendous job all around and Universal has earned their well-deserved victory lap here.” And there is the crux of the matter. Minions equal money.
How much money was easy to quantify in 2010. There were nine movies that grossed at least $250 million in domestic box office. Despicable Me was the ninth one with $251.5 million. If we again reduce the discussion to new properties rather than adaptations and sequels, however, the Illumination Entertainment property once more finishes second. Launching a new title is exceptionally difficult in the movie industry. Universal Pictures leveraged an overkill amount of Minion marketing into a $543 million global blockbuster.
A Despicable Me sequel was always an inevitability. Universal Pictures did not invest that much capital in building the Minions brand for only one movie. They cleverly pasted the overalls-clad yellow helpers all over the Best Buy ads not only as a way to market the original movie but also to build broad awareness. The results were glorious. Kids in particular responded to this modern combination of Looney Tunes cartoon physics combined with Three Stooges-flavored random acts of violence. Any time a child is shown a Minions video, they act like they have been hypnotized. The spell cast by the Minions is that binding.
All of that market awareness paid off three years later in a most unexpected fashion. There was a summer sequel that had been anticipated for many years now. It did not have the word Despicable in the title, either. Instead, Monsters, Inc.’s lead characters, James “Sulley” Sullivan and Mike Wazowski had not been seen in theaters since 2001. For the body of a decade, fans wistfully hoped for the return of the world’s best Scarers.
In June of 2013, those wishes finally came true with the release of Monsters University, a prequel to one of Pixar’s most popular releases. On opening weekend, $82.4 million worth of consumers rewarded Disney for their generosity in making another Monsters film. It was the second best debut ever for a Pixar title. Monsters University would go on to earn $268.5 million domestically, the sixth best tally for a 2013 release. Somehow, this total would prove to be only the third best take for any 2013 animated film. And it was not a large enough total to best Illumination Entertainment’s first theatrical sequel and fourth release overall. David kicked Goliath’s ass in a big, bad way.
The surprises started on opening weekend. Despicable Me had debuted with a respectable $21.3 million on its way to the afore-mentioned $56.4 million weekend. Monsters University garnered $30.5 million of its $82.4 million on its first Friday. Despicable Me 2 began with $35 million. On a Wednesday.
Yes, the Wednesday was July 3rd so there was a bit of holiday inflation involved. Still, it earned a whopping $58.8 million prior to its first weekend. On that Friday, it effectively matched its more storied counterpart, Monsters University, with $30.5 million. It wound up grossing $84.2 million over the weekend, thereby totaling $143.1 million after five days in release. The original Despicable Me needed 15 days to reach the same amount of domestic revenue. Monsters University required nine days.
Despite being the unheralded underdog, Despicable Me 2 absolutely eviscerated Monsters University at the box office, ultimately winning by almost exactly $100 million. In the process, the Despicable Me brand grew by 46% in North America, a Shrek to Shrek 2 type of increase in popularity. And the advances are even more dramatic in terms of global revenue. Despicable Me 2 was the second most popular movie in the world in 2013, grossing $921 million. That amount reflects a gain of $375 million from the first movie as well as a victory of $175 million over Monsters University.
In a fashion, the Despicable Me franchise established itself as the new Shrek in 2013. That DreamWorks Animation franchise was absolutely dominant with its second entry. Even 10 years later, Shrek 2 still stands as one of the 30 biggest blockbusters in terms of global revenue. In fact, Despicable Me 2 only recently surpassed its total of $920 million. The Shrek brand grew $445 million from the original film to the sequel, a feat that has only been matched (and surpassed) by The Dark Knight.
Sequels are supposed to do better than the original movies on opening weekend and then try to reach 70-80% of the first title’s final box office take. Any time the second movie does better than the first, it is an impressive feat. If the second movie absolutely torpedoes the original, that is a sign of potent franchise potential. Shrek has earned $3.5 billion thus far. Despicable Me is approaching $1.5 billion after only two films. That is newsworthy enough on its own.
Now consider that the third movie in the Despicable Me franchise already has a title. It is Minions. Just imagine how much money that movie is going to make.