'Minions' Makes a Mint

Love them or loathe them the pint-sized break-out stars of Illumination Entertainment's Despicable Me franchise have certainly made an impact on pop culture. They've proved so popular with audiences of all ages that the Minions spin-off movie had to be an inevitability at this point. Having opened extremely well in the UK and other key markets, it finally opened in North America on Friday. It was always going to be popular, but even the most generous projection would probably not have predicted quite how big the opening proved to be.

Minions has opened to a whopping $115 million weekend in North America alone. Just a few weeks back Pixar's Inside Out opened to a box-office kerching north of $90m and we thought that was pretty impressive by any standards. This, however, is not just the biggest animation film of the year so far but is also the second biggest opening for any animated movie ever, behind only Shrek The Third. This is added to an already impressive haul of $125m overseas.

The Minions will return in 2017's Despicable Me 3 which is already in the works, but based on this performance it's pretty much unthinkable that there won't be more standalone Minion movies as well. The little yellow dudes have done what their masters could only dream of doing, and conquered the world.



[source].