Watch: The New 'Despicable Me 3' Trailer Reveals Gru's Brother

As it turns out, the first two Despicable Me films have kept one big secret from us: Gru has a twin brother called Dru. Only he doesn't know about it, and he'll only meet him in Despicable Me 3 when it hits theaters this summer. Watch the trailer introducing Dru below.

Watch: The New 'Minions' Trailer Reveals Scarlet Overkill's Master Plan

Minions, the spin-off to Illumination Entertainment's star franchise Despicable Me will be released this summer, but you can watch a brand new trailer for it right now. And yes, it's pretty hilarious. Check it out below.

Universal Slate Illumination's Despicable Me 3 and Grinch Remake for 2017

Universal had an incredibly profitable year with Illumination Entertainment in 2013; Despicable Me 2 made the best part of a billion dollars ($935m, in fact), and the company has just locked in 2017 release dates for two new films from the studio: Despicable Me 3 and a remake of Dr Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

Despicable Me Spin-Off, Minions, Also Delayed to 2015

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.

Despicable Me 2 Review - Illuminatingly Hilarious, Minion-Packed Fun

*This review is largely spoiler free, and most plot-details mentioned are evident in the trailers, but read cautiously if you haven’t seen the film yet*

2010 was a very strong year for animation, providing two of the best animated films of the last few decades with Toy Story 3 and How to Train Your Dragon; other great films were also released that year, including Tangled, Megamind and the debut feature from Illumination Entertainment, Despicable Me. The film won itself a lot of praise, with audiences loving the tender dynamic at the centre of the film, the adorable orphaned girls who Gru adopts and, most crucially, the hilarious little yellow swarms known as the minions. I loved the first film, but have been sorely disappointed by Illumination's two subsequent films, Hop and The Lorax. As such, I, sadly, didn't have high hopes for Despicable Me 2. And I've never been quite so spectacularly wrong: Despicable Me 2 is hilarious, well told and even manages to be better than the first film.

New Despicable Me 2 TV Spots Online

Just over a week ago, three new, genuinely interesting and actually exciting clips for Illumination's to their 2010 original, Despicable Me. These twenty second, quick-cutting clips focus on Gru, three girls in his care, a lot of action, and a budding romance with Kristen Wiig's Agent Lucy Wilde. One such spot is above and the other two are just below.

New Despicable Me 2 Poster Shows a Sea of Minions

Illumination have just rolled out a new poster for Despicable Me 2 on Twitter. Perhaps setting the stage for what's to come next year, the poster is awash with an endless collection of Gru's little nonsensical henchmen, topped off by the catchy tagline "When the world needed a hero, they called a villain."

Despicable Me 2 is directed by Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud and hits UK cinemas on 28th June, and US ones on 3rd July.

Jon Hamm Joins Minions Voice Cast

I've dreamt of the day I'd be able to somehow fit Jon Hamm into an A113Animation post, and now Illumination have answered my prayers. The Universal-owned studio have announced that the Mad Men actor will be lending his voice to the Despicable Me spin-off, alongside Sandra Bullock.

New Despicable Me 2 Trailer Shows Gadgets, Girls and Gru

After a series of Minion vignettes, Universal have finally cranked out a trailer for Despicable Me 2 featuring its main character. iTunes Movie Trailers debuted the new trailer (embedded above) which returns Steve Carell to his role as the villainous Gru.

Sandra Bullock Turning Evil for Despicable Me Spin-Off, Minions

Illumination Entertainment's Despicable Me spin-off based around the series' yellow henchmen, now seemingly titled Minions, just got its first voice cast member, America's Sweetheart, Sandra Bullock. The irony being that Bullock is following in Steve Carell's footsteps and playing an evil-doer in the film.

New Despicable Me 2 Trailer

Universal and Illumination Entertainment have debuted a new trailer for Despicable Me 2 on iTunes Movie Trailers. It shows more of what we can expect story-wise from the follow-up to the 2010 hit: alien abductions, more minion focus (seguing into that planned spin-off maybe) - the return of Vector maybe? He was stranded in space at the end of the first film, and space is, after all, where most aliens would tend to be found.

Being a big fan of the original, this is quite exciting stuff! Let's just hope it turns out more like Despicable Me 1, and less like The Lorax. Be sure to watch in 720p, Illumination's animation is always fantastic.

This trailer will apparently play in front of Disney's Wreck-It Ralph, starting Friday. Despicable Me 2 is directed by Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud, and is released on 28th June, 2013 (UK) and 3rd July, 2013 (US).

Minion-Centric Despicable Me Spin-Off On the Way

This was kind of an inevitability. Illumination Entertainment, who most recently released Dr. Seuss's The Lorax, broke onto the scene back in 2010 with Despicable Me. The film was a big commercial hit, making $543 million worldwide, and well received by critics also - averaging 81% on Rotten Tomatoes - but arguably the biggest hit in the film were the minions.

The gibberish speaking yellow army were huge merchandise hits, received their own short films on the Despicable Me DVD and Blu Ray, and even their own theme-park ride! The minions are sure to feature prominently in 2013's Despicable Me 2 (which adds Kristen Wiig and Al Pacino to the voice cast)but they're going to get even more focus the year after, as the Minions are getting their very own spin-off movie!

Being produced in parallel with Despicable Me 2 with a view for a 2014 release, Deadline reports that Despicable Me co-director Pierre Coffin will direct and The Lorax co-director Kyle Balda will co-direct, from a script written by Brian Lynch (who has experience writing spin-offs, writing the script for DreamWorks' Puss in Boots, and working with Illumination, having worked on Hop). How great a Minions spin-off would be is questionable, but it's sure to rake in a lot of money, and this is sound business for Illumination's parent-company, Universal.

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.

Turbo, Rio 2, Cloudy 2 and More At the Licensing Expo

Yesterday we posted the first look at Blue Sky Studios' upcoming animated feature, Epic, out of this year's Licensing Expo, however it seems we overlooked lots of others. /Film and comingsoon.net bring us some other great first looks, posters and promotional material for upcoming animated films.

Firstly, (top) we have our first look at DreamWorks' Turbo, which follows "an ordinary garden snail who dreams of becoming the fastest snail in the world". While I was greatly looking forward to this film, I'm somewhat more cautious now. The animation is very bright and vibrant, and it looks like a lot of fun; but it also looks very goofy, and the main character is dangerously close to pulling the "DreamWorks face" (see above). I also found a recently released poster for the film (top), which does nothing to allay my fears.

We also get posters for a lot of sequels. Including Blue Sky's Rio 2 (above), Sony's Cloudy 2: Revenge of the Leftovers (above) and The Smurfs 2 (below) and Illumination Entertainment's Despicable Me 2 (below - we actually got a large display for this one). All of what we see for these films, though, gives us nothing new; it merely displays a '2' and the characters from the original - I suppose Cloudy 2 gives us a subtitle...

I loved Rio and Despicable Me - they were both phenomenal - but, at this point, I'm not really that excited to see sequels. I'm sure they'll be handled well, but I'm going to need some more details before I invest in the projects. I haven't seen, and don't particularly want to see, The Smurfs and have zero interest in a sequel. However, the one I'm particularly excited for is Cloudy 2. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was a surprise hit, it was a lot, lot better than the advertising led us to think it would be - and Sony Pictures Animation will presumably handle a sequel well.

And finally, we get another poster (above) for Sony's impending release, Hotel Transylvania.

Turbo is released on 19th July, 2013 (US) and 18th October, 2013 (UK); Rio 2 will premiere in Brazil on 28th March and on 4th April, 2014 worldwide; Cloudy 2 is due for release on 14th February, 2014; Despicable Me 2 is due on 28th June, 2013 (UK) and 3rd July (US); The Smurfs 2 will be in cinemas on 31st July 2013; finally, Hotel Transylvania is out much sooner, on 28th September (US) and 12th October (UK), of this year.

All release dates are via IMDb and are correct at the time of publishing.

The Lorax and John Carter Debut - Who's Winning?

The latest animated effort from Illumination Entertainment - the studio behind Despicable Me - The Lorax, was released last Friday. While the critical response to the film hasn't been overwhelmingly positive, it has been raking it in at the US box office, opening in the number 1 position and maintaining that place this week. It's currently grossed over $120 million, making it the highest grossing film of the year thus far.

It's placed ahead of a film that made its debut this weekend, a film that Disney was hoping would place significantly higher, Andrew Stanton's John Carter. The Finding Nemo director's adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs's first Barsoom based sci-fi novel was hoped to be Disney's next franchise, to replace Pirates of the Carribbean; yet it took only £30.6 million in its opening weekend. While it's far too early to write it off yet, the combination of bad marketing, poor critical response so far and a reportedly large budget mean that a sequel is looking less likely; which is a real shame given Andrew Stanton's blatant love for the source material and his immense talent.

It's a shame to see John Carter under-perform, and I'll be able to judge it for myself (and contribute to its worldwide gross) when I see it this weekend.

Despicable Me 2 Teaser Trailer

Ahead of the US release of The Lorax later this week, Illumination Entertainment have released a short teaser trailer for another of their upcoming films: the sequel to their first, immensely popular, animated film, 2010's Despicable Me.

The short teaser trailer (above) reveals no plot points, or really anything new, instead offering us up arguably the biggest hit in the original, the Minions, singing a Beach Boys song. Nonetheless, it does a good job of slowly building the hype, after all 2013 is a long way off yet, and if it's anything like the original, Despicable Me 2 promises to be great!

We also get the first new, also Minion focuses, poster the sequel (below).

Via Empire.

New The Lorax Trailer

Courtesy of Yahoo! Movies, we get the next full trailer for the next animated film from Illumination Entertainment, the guys behind Despicable Me, the adaptation of Dr. Seuss's The Lorax.

The Lorax, due to hit cinemas on March 2, 2012, is looking pretty great so far. It looks insanely charming and quirky and the animation is just fantastic, retaining Illumination's very European, stylised character models and capturing the heart of the Dr. Seuss book.

I'm genuinely excited to see how The Lorax turns out, as it looks pretty great thus far.

The Lorax - "A Look Inside" Clip

Illumination Entertainment have released a new clip to promote their next animated feature film, the adaptation of Dr. Seuss's The Lorax. The studio behind Despicable Me rolled out the trailer for The Lorax a few weeks back, and today they have released a clip showing the voice cast at work and offering some words on the film and its characters.

Note, embedding was disabled on the video, so you'll have to watch it on YouTube here.

The Lorax Trailer

Courtesy of Cartoon Brew, today we get the first theatrical trailer for Illumination Entertainment's animation adaptation of Dr. Seuss's The Lorax.

The film looks brilliant; wonderfully innocent, fantastically animated and with a very funny, well polished story; The Lorax looks set to be a great return to form for Illumination Entertainment, the studio behind Despicable Me, after the rather disappointing Live Action/CGI mash-up, Hop. It also looks like it will do very nicely as, at least spiritually, a follow up to Blue Sky Studios' Horton Hears a Who film a few years ago.

While this may not be the perfect image of Dr. Seuss's book, it looks like a whole lot of fun and a good film besides; Dr. Seuss was a genius, and this film looks like it's going to capture that.

The Lorax Poster

A week or so ago, Illumination Entertainment, the studio behind Despicable Me - and more recently, Hop - revealed the teaser poster for their upcoming film adaptation of Dr Seuss' The Lorax.

The film follows Chris Meledandri, CEO of Illumination Entertainment, over from Blue Sky Studios, after Meledandri oversaw production of the previous Dr. Seuss film, Horton Hears a Who over at Blue Sky and hits theatres March 2, 2012, directed by Despicable Me director, Chris Renaud and featuring the voices of Danny DeVito, Zac Efron and Ed Helms.

Poster courtesy of The Reel Bits and Yahoo! Movies.