‘Despicable Me’/‘Minions’ Becomes First Animated Franchise To Reach $5B In Global Box Office

As Illumination/Universal’s Despicable Me 4 continues global rollout, and with its Friday numbers included, the latest from Gru and the gang has helped propel the Despicable Me/Minions franchise across the $5B mark (to $5.025B through Friday) at the worldwide box office. This makes it the first animated franchise ever to reach the milestone. It was already the biggest animated franchise of all time wordwide.

DM4 this weekend is expected to be the No. 1 film globally for the second consecutive frame, adding an estimated $136M through Sunday worldwide. This would bring the running global total to $441M, including $210.45M from domestic and $230.7M across 78 international box office markets. 

After beginning early overseas play in select markets four weeks ago, DM4 this frame added France, Germany, UK and China. It still has Japan due on July 19, Korea on July 24 and Italy on August 21.

So far, 26 international markets have had the biggest opening weekend of the franchise (not including this weekend’s openers). 

The Top 5 offshore markets through Friday are: Australia ($20.8M), Mexico ($19.5M), Brazil ($10.5M), Spain ($9M) and Argentina ($8.1M).

Domestically, the Despicable Me/Minions franchise now ranks as the 10^th highest-grossing of all time, ahead of Transformers ($1.74B) , Hunger Games ($1.61B) and Shrek ($1.60)

News of the $5B achievement comes as Universal last week dated Minions 3 for release on June 30, 2027. That film will be written by Brian Lynch (Minions, The Secret Life of Pets films) and directed by Academy Award nominee Pierre Coffin, the filmmaker behind the first three Despicable Me films and the first Minions movie. Coffin has also provided the voice for the Minions since their feature debut in 2010. The film will be produced by Illumination’s founder and CEO Chris Meledandri and by Bill Ryan (EP, The Super Mario Bros. Movie).

Illumination’s library counts more than $10B at the global box office. The animation production studio has an exclusive financing and distribution partnership with Universal Pictures.