‘Minions: The origin of Gru’: Why do you have to see it?

Paraphrasing Winston Churchill, Never have so few owed so much to so many. Tell it to Gru, Hollywood’s favorite villain, but above all to its creators: the producer and boss of Illumination Studios, Chris Melandri, and to Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud, Kyle Balda and Sergio Pablos, the creature’s parents . Because, let’s grope another famous quote, 3,500 million euros raised contemplate the highest grossing animated franchise in history. And there is not a single reason that explains such success, but 257. That is the exact number of minions, the evil-fascinated yellow minions who turn everything they touch into banana gold. “Some creatures whose success”, Coffin told FOTOGRAMAS, “took us all by surprise. I suppose that if you set out to create a super attractive character for him to succeed, you fail miserably. I still remember the reaction of the public the first time we screened ‘Gru: Despicable Me’ at the Annecy festival. The people went crazy”.

wild attraction

12 years after that animated epiphany, and after two years of delay on the first scheduled release date –“We wanted to wait for the public to return to theaters”, says Melandri– the phenomenon continues with ‘Minions: The Origin of Gru’ , the fifth installment of the saga and sequel to the spin-off that Illumination dedicated to these beings. “A few living cylinders that”, explains Coffin, “neither grow old nor reproduce, but they do die. And they are all male! They’re stupid and they love to hit each other, what’s more masculine than that? The French filmmaker, who continues to give voice to Kevin, Stuart, Bob and the rest of the minion population –including Otto, a new signing–, gets off the bandwagon of directing this new installment. If Kyle Balda continues, which has animators Brad Ableson and Jonathan del Val as co-directors. In this installment, “the most dynamic and hooligan we’ve ever done,” says Chris Melandri, “the plot starts in the 70s with Gru, a 12-year-old boy, trying to join The Wild Six, a gang of miscreants looking for a new leader. after getting rid of their former ringleader, Wild Knuckles. The humor is still present”, continues Melandri, “but it is the action that we have taken to another level. The film is a tribute to the cinema of the 70s and the films of Bruce Lee”.

Alan Arkin, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, Danny Trejo, Michelle Yeoh and Taraji P. Henson join an original voice cast that continues Steve Carell, Russell Brand and Julie Andrews. In the dubbed version, Florentino Fernández returns to being Gru and Mónica Naranjo takes on Donna Disco, the nemesis of the young would-be villain.