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.
28 Interesting Facts About Minions & Monsters
Interesting Facts (6)
- #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.
- #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).
- #003
This is George Lucas's first on-screen cameo in a film since Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005).
- #004
Most of the Minions are named after famous Hollywood directors, likely including Quentin and Steven.
- #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.
- #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.
Production Story (4)
- #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.
- #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.
- #009
Coffin, drawing on his love of old cinema, chose to set Minions & Monsters in the early days of Hollywood.
- #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.
Behind the Scenes (7)
- #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.
- #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.
- #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.
- #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.
- #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.
- #016
Many staff players in the orchestra for Minions & Monsters had previously worked on the animated television series Freakazoid! and Animaniacs.
- #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.
Characters & Cast (2)
- #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.
- #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.
Easter Eggs & References (9)
- #020
"Goomi" is a nod to François "Goomi" Launet, creator of the Lovecraft-style parody webcomic Unspeakable Vault.
- #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.
- #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.
- #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.
- #024
Dort is a reference to Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).
- #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.
- #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.
- #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.
- #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.
Sources & editorial notes
Reference databases
- Wikipedia
- IMDb
Sources for the entries on this page
- Wikipedia Wikipedia (EN)
- Wikipedia Minions & Monsters — Wikipedia
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