‘Minions 2’ Marks Hollywood’s Final Covid-Delayed 2020 Release

In advance of Universal’s Jurassic World: Dominion (which I’m seeing tonight… should I warn my son about the buzz?), we’ve got one last Minions: The Rise of Gru trailer. Thank goodness, because the most recent, plot-heavy trailer has joined the first Bullet Train teaser and the last Lightyear trailer as the “new Morbius” in that you see the trailer every time you see any movie in a theater. To be fair, one consequence of having so few big movies this summer (Top Gun: Maverick made up 75% of last weekend’s box office… that’s not sustainable) is that you get the same half-dozen or so trailers before every big movie with little variety. You show up on the opening day for Doctor Strange 2 or Top Gun 2 in IMAX, you’re seeing trailers for Thor: Love and Thunder, Bullet Train, Lightyear, Jurassic World: Dominion and Minions: The Rise of Gru.

Minions: The Rise of Gru will mark the end of an era. Presuming it opens as planned on July 1, it will be the last Covid-era film that was supposed to come out in 2020 to finally see the light of day. Whether absence makes the heart grow fonder is a matter of speculation, but that certainly was the case for Top Gun: Maverick ($550 million worldwide and counting) and I’d argue several other Covid-era flicks (Free Guy, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Godzilla Vs. Kong, Dune, Everything Everywhere All at Once, etc.) performed better now than they would have in conventional circumstances. How long has Illumination and Universal’s Minions: The Rise of Gru been delayed? So long that (like Top Gun 2) audiences have seen its trailer before showings of both Sonic the Hedgehog in February of 2020 and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in April of 2022.

Minions earned $1.156 billion worldwide in the summer of 2015, second only to Frozen ($1.276 billion) at the time among animated films. The last two Despicable Me movies earned $970 million in 2013 and $1.034 billion in 2017, the latter being that summer’s only $1 billion grosser. Even if Minions 2 (which is both a sequel to Minions and a prequel to the first Despicable Me) dives par with The Secret Life of Pets 2 ($430 million versus $875 million) or Sing 2 ($410 million versus $634 million), the film will still earn between $500 million and $715 million worldwide. That would still be A) the biggest-grossing toon since Frozen II in late 2019 and B) between 5.9 and 8.5 times its over/under $85 million budget. That’s not even counting PVOD revenue or the rest of the non-theatrical money instigated by a successful global theatrical run.

In past summers, big Illumination movies (Despicable Me 2, Minions, Secret Life of Pets) flourished right alongside big Disney/Pixar films (Monsters University, Inside Out, Finding Dory), and in non-Covid times I’d argue the same alongside Pixar’s Lightyear. However, Disney’s animated films, hybrid releases and shorter windows notwithstanding, haven’t exactly been breaking the bank at the multiplex. I’m expecting Lightyear to do just fine next week, but right now the pressure is on the Mouse House to show that they can still play even at the level of a mid-range Universal title. If Sing 2 can earn $410 million (and $161 million domestic) while coexisting on PVOD for most of its theatrical run, well, either Encanto ($250 million followed by massive Disney+ viewership) was a victim of streaming > theaters prioritizing, or Disney is no longer the king of theatrical animation. I’ll assume the former, but we’re in trust-but-verify mode.