Minions
"Boss' Office" Featurette
Animated movies are often made by a domino effect of several situations, and the Despicable Me franchise is no exception. Illumination, the studio that created Despicable Me, was founded by Chris Meledandri only a few years before the first Despicable Me movie came out.
He reveals in the exclusive Minions featurette, “Boss’ Office,” that Despicable Me was one of the first story pitches that he received. Though most of our Minions extras focus on the Minions movie itself, this one talks about the history that led to Minions, including the creation and success of Despicable Me.
In this Minions featurette, Chris Meledandri discusses the thought process behind the development of Despicable Me. He hypothesizes that there are several reasons why audiences love the minions themselves, and why they have become such a huge success.
First and foremost, he believes that their adorable nature is the driving factor behind their popularity. Audiences around the world have been charmed by the minions’ cute design since Despicable Me came out, and that charm and attraction is what caused the desire for a separate movie series only about the minions.
Another central topic that Meledandri discusses in our Minions behind-the-scenes video is the minions’ “wanting to be bad, but essentially being so good.” As henchmen for the supervillain Gru, of course, the minions’ main job is to be bad and help Gru commit dastardly crimes. Ultimately, as we see, the minions can’t help but put a lot of heart, soul, and fun into everything that they do. They want to follow Gru’s instructions, but often get distracted by the fun that they have with each other. And, of course, they have big hearts. This dichotomy is incredibly cute, and seeing these adorable yellow beans trying to create evil makes them all the more lovable.
The most encompassing secret that Meledandri discusses in this Minions extra is the spirit of the minions themselves. He believes that their spirit is truly what makes these characters so loveable. However, spirit is a relatively broad category, so Meledandri breaks it down to the way the minions behave and perform, their appearance, and, of course, their voices. As audiences have discovered, the minions speak their own language, which seems to be a combination of several languages with a bit of nonsense mixed in as well. The voices, somehow, are still able to convey a great deal of comedy, even if we can’t understand what they’re actually saying.
Meledandri goes on to discuss the two central elements to successful and popular movies. In this, he includes:
- Talent. The writing, voice acting, animation team, production team, and art team all require a great deal of talent.
- Character. Though the characters in Minions and Despicable Me are different from us, we can see their heart and their goodness even when they are trying so hard to be bad. Many of us can relate to this juxtaposition within ourselves, and it makes the story that much more appealing.
For access to more exclusive Minions content, purchase the movie on 4k Ultra HD, Blu-rayTM, DVD, or Digital.*
*Bonus features are only available at select digital retailers. Check the retailer for details.
Like this article? Read more about the making of Minions here: