'Minions 2' gets a 2020 release date as director Kyle Balda joins production team in Paris
Director Kyle Balda, best known for his movies 'Minions' which released in 2015 and 'Despicable Me: 3' which released in 2017, has revealed that the script for 'Minions 2' is ready. The announcement was made after the director returned from the US to his home in Paris. The animated film will be produced by Illumination Mac Guff studio where Balda worked as the head of the layout for 'Despicable Me' (2010) and co-directed 'The Lorax' (2012). Balda had earlier directed several short films for the studio and had worked alongside Pierre Coffin for 'Minions'.
Digital Spy quotes Balda saying, "We have a script... I went back for about 15 months to do pre-production on the movie. Production is starting right now, actually, in Paris, so I'll be here for another couple of years... We're just starting – sets are being built and we're doing some staging and some early layout for the film. And it comes out in almost exactly two years."
A two years production slot for an animated movie is quite a short one, as Balda notes. He continues to explain, "It's pretty speedy... But it's great because every day there's a new puzzle to put together – there are so many moving parts and things are happening at the same time. Certain parts are still in story development while others are being animated. So it's like this beast that's coming together that wakes up one day."
When 'Minions' was released in 2015, it had picked up a whopping $395 million at the global box office in its opening weekend, and was the second biggest debut that year for an animated film with a domestic total of $115 million - just a few slots ahead of 'Toy Story 3' which made $110 million and 'Shrek 2' which made $108 million.
Although the spin-off of 'Despicable Me'- which sees the young Gru meet the minions for the first time as they tackle against the megastar super villain Scarlet Overkill- had received a mixed response among critics, it has certainly raised the expectation of a generation of audience who certainly consider the banana-colored creatures and their bizarre language a part of their daily life.
According to Vulture, Universal and Illumination Entertainment's 'Despicable Me' movies along with their 'Minions' spin-off are now the highest grossing animated franchise of all time.
The three 'Despicable Me' movies and 2015's 'Minion's had seen a soaring $3.528 billion dollars within the first weekend of the release, an amount which might just keep soaring with the release of the new film — 'Minions 2'.
In fact, it has surpassed DreamWorks Animation's 'Shrek' franchise to become the highest grossing animated franchise. Animated World Network quotes Chris Meledandri, Illumination Entertainment head, saying, "The enduring success of Despicable Me and Minions is a testament to the extraordinary talent of the team at Illumination and Illumination Mac Guff combined with the world’s greatest studio, Universal...Our passion for creating memorable experiences is on display in Despicable Me 3, and we thank fans for taking this chapter to a billion-dollar milestone.”
'Minions 2' is reportedly set to release on June 28, 2020, in the UK. It is only a matter of time before it can be said if the new movie will bring back the fantasy orc-like characteristics in the minions or if the audience will see them as Gru's light-headed minions.