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Minions & Monsters

FILM · 2026 · USA

Minions & Monsters

Directed by
Pierre Coffin
Runtime
90 min
Studio
Universal Pictures, Illumination

28 archived facts 5 topics 3 sources Last reviewed Oct 2026

This is the rambunctious, ridiculous and totally true story of how the Minions conquered Hollywood, became movie stars, lost everything, unleashed monsters onto the world and then banded together to try and save the planet from the mayhem they had just created.

  • Minions & Monsters — production image

28 Interesting Facts About Minions & Monsters

Interesting Facts (6)

  1. #001

    The score was composed by John Powell, marking his third collaboration with Illumination after The Lorax and Migration and the first time a Despicable Me film in the series was scored by Powell rather than Heitor Pereira.

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  2. #002

    The film is set in 1927, during the transition from silent cinema to sound cinema, and takes place 41 years before the events of Minions (2015).

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  3. #003

    This is George Lucas's first on-screen cameo in a film since Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005).

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  4. #004

    Most of the Minions are named after famous Hollywood directors, likely including Quentin and Steven.

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  5. #005

    In the town, the railway chase scene and what follows feature a poster for an event to be held on Sunday, May 14. The film is set in 1922 because that was the only May 14 to fall on a Sunday between 1920 and 1932.

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  6. #006

    George Lucas appears as a film museum exhibit in Minions & Monsters (2026), which is released the same year the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is set to open in Los Angeles, California.

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Production Story (4)

  1. #007

    The concept for Minions & Monsters originated with producer Chris Meledandri, who wanted to explore a film in which the Minions make a movie with monsters before unleashing them into the world.

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  2. #008

    Meledandri pitched the idea to veteran director Pierre Coffin, who liked it even though he had not intended to direct another film in the franchise after Despicable Me 3.

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  3. #009

    Coffin, drawing on his love of old cinema, chose to set Minions & Monsters in the early days of Hollywood.

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  4. #010

    Minions & Monsters shares its title with a 2021 short that aired on NBC on June 11, 2021 and appeared on the DVD release of Minions: The Rise of Gru on September 6, 2022.

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Behind the Scenes (7)

  1. #011

    Patrick Delage served as co-director alongside Pierre Coffin on the third Minions film, after working with him on the Pat & Stan film The Treasure of Pit and Mortimer and the "Fraternité" segment featuring the Minions for the Paris 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony.

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  2. #012

    According to director Pierre Coffin, the collaboration with George Lucas came together quickly after producer Chris Renaud texted Lucas's wife directly, and Lucas recorded his brief 15-minute cameo during a studio visit in France.

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  3. #013

    The monsters in Minions & Monsters were designed by character designer François Launet, drawing on heavy inspiration from H.P. Lovecraft and the drawings in the warlock's spell book. Launet had previously worked as a SFX supervisor at Mac Guff before its animation unit was bought by Illumination in 2011.

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  4. #014

    Pierre Coffin contacted John Powell, who traveled to Illumination's Paris office to meet Coffin and view the film; Powell stayed in Paris a week to write musical cues, which Coffin approved.

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  5. #015

    Composer Powell described his score for Minions & Monsters as deliberately "indulgent" and unlike what he would write for a serious film, calling the music overly emotional, overwrought, overplayed and overwritten.

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  6. #016

    Many staff players in the orchestra for Minions & Monsters had previously worked on the animated television series Freakazoid! and Animaniacs.

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  7. #017

    A visual gag in early promotional trailers for Minions & Monsters, in which a red clown nose fell suggestively between a clown Minion's legs, was changed for the final theatrical release. Executive producer Chris Renaud asked for the scene to be altered to avoid a possible backlash from parents, and Pierre Coffin reanimated it so the nose bounced back into the character's face.

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Characters & Cast (2)

  1. #018

    George Lucas was revealed in June 2026 to have a role in Minions & Monsters, having been approached by Chris Meledandri because Lucas was an admitted fan of the Despicable Me franchise.

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  2. #019

    Trey Parker's character in Minions & Monsters is named Goomi, taken from the nickname of character designer François Launet and used as a Japanese word for 'garbage' rather than his full name.

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Easter Eggs & References (9)

  1. #020

    "Goomi" is a nod to François "Goomi" Launet, creator of the Lovecraft-style parody webcomic Unspeakable Vault.

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  2. #021

    During the Hollywood museum tour at the start of the film, many props can be seen in the background. One of them is the hoverboard from Back to the Future Part II.

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  3. #022

    During the end credits sequence, one of the parting jokes shows two present-day Minions casting a spell from a spellbook using the words "Jackie Costanza." These are joking references to two assistants of director Christopher Meledandri.

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  4. #023

    Trey Parker's vocal performance as Goomi is likely a nod to his many voice-altered roles on South Park; however, Parker has stated in interviews that he wanted to do a voice different from anything he had done on South Park.

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  5. #024

    Dort is a reference to Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).

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  6. #025

    The first film tour contains numerous references to famous Universal films and their actors. These include (2:06) the Bluesmobile from The Blues Brothers, (2:11) Airplane!, Jaws, E. T. and King Kong, (2:20) Keanu Reeves in The Matrix and Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon, (2:45) the hat and hoverboard from Back to the Future Part II, (2:51) George Orwell sitting with Citizen Kane's newspapers but dressed as F for Fake, (2:55) Alfred Hitchcock with The Birds, and (3:13) Humphrey Bogart from Casablanca.

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  7. #026

    There are many references to other specific films and genres, for example: a building facade falling forward onto an unharmed character, Charlie Chaplin working in a factory, a train advancing along a road (Inception), and a chase on horseback in a western.

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  8. #027

    Several musical cues in Minions & Monsters echoed Hollywood's Golden Age, drawing on scores by Carl Stalling, Bernard Herrmann, Franz Waxman and Max Steiner.

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  9. #028

    During the Monster Invasion scene, James drives a car with "TS1989" on its license plate, a reference to Taylor Swift and her album 1989.

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Sources & editorial notes

Reference databases

  • Wikipedia English Wikipedia article
  • IMDb IMDb title page (trivia)

Sources for the entries on this page

  1. Wikipedia Wikipedia (EN)Database · accessed 13 Sep 2026
  2. Wikipedia Minions & Monsters — WikipediaEncyclopedia · accessed 18 Sep 2026

Information from external sources is independently selected, consolidated and edited by Arka Evren. Sources are listed for verification and further reading. Encyclopedia text is used under its licence (CC BY-SA). How we work