Minions & Monsters from cinema’s most bankable animated series are stumbling toward an unwelcome box office record. Early projections indicate the seventh Despicable Me film is set to become the first entry in the 14-year-old franchise to miss the half-billion-dollar mark, a downturn for a property that has reliably printed money since 2010.
Minions & Monsters likely to be Despicable Me franchise’s worst box office movie
Directed by franchise veteran Pierre Coffin, the prequel transports the yellow troublemakers to 1920s Hollywood, where they accidentally become silent-film stars before the advent of talkies upends their careers. Desperate for a comeback, the Minions use a stolen spell book to conjure real monsters for their own creature feature, only to watch their creations develop ambitions of world domination. The voice cast features Allison Janney, Jeff Bridges, Jesse Eisenberg, and a cameo from George Lucas.
After opening across 4,243 North American locations on July 1, Minions & Monsters collected $62 million domestically through the Independence Day holiday frame. By early August, worldwide ticket sales had stalled at roughly $473 million. That figure trails the franchise’s previous low-water mark by a significant margin. The original Despicable Me, released before the series became a cultural phenomenon, still managed $544 million globally without adjusting for inflation (via Box Office Mojo).
What makes this underperformance particularly jarring is the franchise’s track record of extraordinary consistency. The Minions have reliably powered films past the billion-dollar threshold, with 2015’s Minions reaching $1.157 billion and Despicable Me 3 crossing $1.032 billion globally. Even pandemic-era entries performed remarkably well. Minions: The Rise of Gru battled through COVID-disrupted markets to secure $937 million in 2022, while Despicable Me 4 collected $986 million just two years ago (via Box Office Mojo).
With Minions & Monsters already heading to streaming after completing its theatrical rollout across all major territories, including China, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan, any chance of a late surge has effectively evaporated.
