Central to their appeal is their unique manner of communicating. “Despicable Me” is Gru’s story, but it’s the Minions that made the biggest impression, leading to a larger role in “Despicable Me 2” (2013) and their own vehicle in 2015. One of that film’s directors, Pierre Coffin, told The Guardian in 2015 that the Minions were a “complete accident” - originally conceived as thuggish and burly, they were reimagined as “subterranean mole men-type creatures” after it was decided that a less threatening design might make Gru seem milder and more sympathetic. Steve Carell voiced Gru, the world’s foremost supervillain, who relies on his army of blundering helpers - something like evil Oompa-Loompas - to run his lair. In their first screen appearance, in “Despicable Me” (2010), the Minions were bit players. The writer Zack Kotzer has argued, persuasively, that Universal’s lenient attitude toward copyright enforcement helped the Minions reach a point of cultural saturation. Minions merchandise is ubiquitous, and on social media, the Minions lead TikTok trends and star in Boomer-beloved memes. The second, “Minions: The Rise of Gru,” released last week, broke the box office record for Independence Day weekend. The first “Minions,” starring those pill-shaped yellow humanoids in blue overalls and goggles that kids seem to find irresistible, went on to earn more than $1 billion worldwide. As the actual feature started, a boy in the front row seemed to speak for the entire room when he screamed, at the top of his lungs, “I WANT MINIONS!” When the trailer ended, they refused to settle down. Children all around me were bouncing in their seats, shrieking and wailing in utter delight. The auditorium quaked with laughter and applause. I had never heard an audience so ecstatically enraptured in my life. Before the film began, the studio played a trailer for “Minions,” Universal’s spinoff based on characters from its popular series “Despicable Me.” Early one Saturday morning in the summer of 2015, I attended a press screening of an animated film with a few other critics and a lot of happy families.
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