Three days after a surprise Super Bowl teaser, the first proper trailer for Illumination Entertainment’s Minions: The Rise of Gru has landed in a blur of yellow.
The film is at once a prequel and a sequel. It follows on from 2015’s Minions, a spin-off from the Despicable Me trilogy (2010, 2013, 2017). In terms of narrative chronology, The Rise of Gru lands between them. If Minions revealed where the gibbering yellow henchmen came from, the new film appears to be an origin story for the titular villain who becomes their commander. As the title suggests, young Gru is at the center of the story, and the trailer introduces his antagonists, the supervillain group Vicious 6.
Kyle Balda, who co-directed Minions and Despicable Me 3, is promoted to lead director here, with Brad Ableson (who has worked as a storyboard and character layout artist on The Simpsons) and Jonathan del Val (co-director, The Secret Life of Pets 2) as his co-directors. Illumination’s founder and CEO Chris Meledandri is producing alongisde his longtime collaborators Janet Healy and Chris Renaud. Steve Carell and Pierre Coffin return to voice Gru and the Minions respectively, and Brian Lynch, who wrote the original Minions feature, is back to write this new film.
