Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem

Back in 2010, Universal threw themselves into the world of animation, with the first theatrical release of their own dedicated animation department, Illumination Entertainment: Despicable Me. Despicable Me was a huge success, taking over $543 million worldwide and inspiring an upcoming sequel. However, arguably the biggest hits to come out of Despicable Me were the adorable minions.

Everybody fell in love with the minions and Universal clearly recognises that, as, following three dedicated Minion mini-movies on the Despicable Me home media releases, the minions are now even getting their own attraction at Universal Orlando!



The ride is called "Minion Mayhem" and, according to the official press release, sees you enter Gru's house to be recruited as a minion. Read an extract from the press release below:

"This brand-new ride combines the outrageous humor and memorable characters of Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment’s blockbuster film Despicable Me, with an all-new storyline, incredible new animation and the latest 3-D technology to create a wildly hysterical theme park experience.

Families will watch in amazement as they are transformed into minions, laugh together as they train to join Gru’s minion army and boogie down during the world’s-first minion-inspired dance party. Despicable Me Minion Mayhem is hilarious and heartwarming fun for the entire family."

You can see some photos from early runs of the attraction here, as well as a video (above) showing the mischievous minions causing havoc at Universal Orlando. "Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem" opens officially on 2nd July.

Also, you can check out a Facebook app with the minions, "Dance Party Marathon", similar in idea to Disney's "Mahna-Mahna" app for The Muppets a few months ago: you have 10 seconds to record yourself dancing. Hundreds and hundreds of such clips from around the world are then spliced together with some minion dancing (Universal seem really rather fond of making the minions dance) acting as an interlude.

Between this and Disney's Cars Land, studios definitely seem to understand how crucial good advertising and film-based theme park attractions are to business success!

Despicable Me 2 is released on 28th June, 2013 (UK) and 3rd July, 2013 (US), let's hope this pacifies us until then.