This year several movies finally hit the box office after some of the longest Covid delays, and this included Minions: The Rise of Gru, which arrived on July 4 as one of the films with a massive two years wait from when it was first expected to release. Along with Top-Gun: Maverick, the movie was delayed so long that it was able to have a feature trailer released at two non-consecutive Super Bowl events, and its other connection with the high-flying Tom Cruise movie is that it appears to have been worth the wait, as the Minions sequel has now passed $500 million at the international box office.
The latest movie in the Despicable Me franchise landed in cinemas to a record-breaking opening weekend, beating the Independence Day holiday weekend box office record set by Transformers: The Last Knight back in 2011. Having already gained a good footing at the box office, Minions: The Rise of Gru was boosted by good reviews and TikTok’s “GentleMinions” trend, which gave sales an added boost, which altogether brings the film’s worldwide takings to just short of $869 million. This has been enough to see the movie storm past The Batman to sit comfortably in 4th place in the worldwide 2022 box office chart.
While several previous Minions and Despicable Me movies managed to surpass $1 billion after similar starts, with the current box office being what it is, this is unlikely to happen with Minions: The Rise of Gru, but it certainly doesn’t make the move any kind of failure for not reaching that milestone.
Despicable Me 4 is Currently in Production
While it could be easy to think that after three main features and two “prequel” movies, the Despicable Me bandwagon could be about to run out of steam, but a fourth movie in the main franchise is already being worked on at Illumination and will be coming to theaters in 2024.
Minions: Rise of Gru has already seen the franchise as a whole fly past $4 billion, and the next installment will be hoping to push that total beyond $5 billion. According to early reports, the new movie will obviously see the return of Steve Carell as the voice Gru, and he will be joined by Kristen Wiig, Miranda Cosgrove, Pierre Coffin and Russell Brand. The film will also see Chris Renaud back in the director’s chair after missing the third movie, and even though there is still quite a wait until the film arrives in cinemas on July 3, 2024.
It has been clear from Minions: The Rise of Gru that there is still plenty of love out there for the little accident-prone yellow Minions and their master, even if the critics were not really on board with the latest offering, giving it just a 55% approval rate on Rotten Tomatoes. However, as has been proven by many movies this year, sometimes critic ratings don’t seem relevant when it comes to success at the box office, which in the long run is what future installments of any franchise are more reliant on.