It's not quite as drastic as Pixar's 18 month delay on The Good Dinosaur, but yet another highly anticipated 2014 animated film has been pushed back to the already packed 2015. Variety reports that Illumination Entertainment have delayed Minions, their spin-off of the Despicable Me franchise, from the originally reported 19th December, 2014 release date, to one of 10th July, 2015.
This puts Minions about a month after Pixar's next film, Pete Docter's Inside Out, which opens on 19th June, 2015. This should prove a lucrative spot for the yellow hench-things, as it'll be lighter, more family-friendly fare than the new Terminator film (which comes out on 1st July, 2015) or Batman vs. Superman (which comes out one week after). Of note, Illumination previously had an untitled movie slated for a 3rd July, 2015 release, that's now moved to 12th February, 2016.
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| An example of the innumerable Despicable Me 2 merchandise. |
The move sounds more like a monetary one, after the monstrous success of Despicable Me 2 ($840 million and counting), rather than a sign of creative problems. Variety says, "the new date will enable Universal to fully exploit the film as a summer tentpole that lends itself to a vast consumer products program, games and theme park promotions."
Minions is directed by Despicable Me director Pierre Coffin and The Lorax co-director Kyle Balda, it stars the voices of Sandra Bullock and Jon Hamm.
If The BoxTrolls or How to Train Your Dragon 2 move, I'm going to start thinking my top animated films to watch for in 2014 list was cursed...
2014 is going to be a weak year for animation with no entries from Pixar, Illumination, or Sony....looks like the heavy-lifting will be left to DreamWorks, which has three movies set for next year...
ReplyDeleteOh now I definitely don't agree there. Sony tend not to be upper tier stuff anyway. And we've still got The Lego Movie, How to Train Your Dragon 2, The BoxTrolls and Big Hero 6! Not to mention, like you say, DreamWorks' other films.
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