Universal and Illumination have set on a title for the sequel to their hit 2015 animated film Minions, itself a spinoff of the Despicable Me franchise. The latest film, now titled Minions: The Rise of Gru, had already set a July 3, 2020, release date. The title suggests the plot could be an origin story of sorts…

Illumination’s Despicable Me series of films has surpassed the Shrek movies to become the highest-grossing animated franchise of all time worldwide. A $21.2M international weekend on Despicable Me 3 has pushed the franchise to a $3.528B global total for Gru and the Minions. That tops the Shrek stable of five pics…

Showing confidence in future growth of its Asia theme park business, Comcast NBCUniversal has agreed to purchase the 49% of Universal Studios Japan which it does not already own. The stake is being acquired from Goldman Sachs, former USJ CEO Glenn Gumpel, private equity firm MBK Partners and hedge fund Owl Creek Asset…

The big story from Deadline’s 2015 Most Valuable Blockbuster Tournament is that Star Wars: The Force Awakens won the crown with $923M in net profits (not including merchandising), with kudos to JJ Abrams and Disney. Minions came in second place, a strong finish for Universal and Chris Meledandri’s Illumination…

When it comes to evaluating the financial performance of top movies, it isn't about what a film grosses at the box office. The true tale is told when production budgets, P&A, talent participations and other costs collide with box office grosses and ancillary revenues from VOD to DVD and TV. To get close to that mysteri…

EXCLUSIVE: Given the number of tentpoles and sequels the studios were churning out, we predicted two years ago that 2015 was going to be a stellar box office year. And now, the industry is poised to top $11 billion domestically for the first time. That’s noteworthy unto itself, but here is another incredible stat…

Two Disney-Pixar films and an adult stop-motion animated comedy and drama were some of the top features nominated at the 43rd Annie Awards. And even though Pixar has The Good Dinosaur and Inside Out in the running, it’s the latter title about the emotions in an adolescent girl’s head that’s charging the way with 14…

A total of 16 features have been submitted for consideration for this year’s Best Animated Feature Film category for the 88th Academy Awards. They range from Universal and Illumination’s $1.15B worldwide box office hit Minions and Disney/Pixar’s $840M+ grosser Inside Out to the animated charmer Shaun The…

Illumination Entertainment has staked out three July dates for three of its untitled franchise titles with Universal. The first film will open on Friday, July 13, 2018; the second on Wednesday, July 3, 2019 and the third one on Friday, July 10, 2020. This summer, the animation studio’s Despicable Me spinoff made a…

UPDATED Tuesday, 10:22 AM: Sony reported grosses on Pixels last night and due to their computer problems (their Internet was down on Sunday), the guesstimates were way off — like $3M off. It’s updated with final numbers now. In addition, three more films have been added in — Southpaw, No Escape, The Little Prince, and…

UPDATED, Monday, 1:35, 4:00 and 4:17 PM PT: Final tallies are in for stateside openers Everest and Maze Runner: Scorch Trials which grabbed $28.8M and $43.2M, respectively. Scorch Trials total cume so far is $78M. Interesting that in India, Everest opened so strong with $1.4M in only 450 runs that it beat out all…

Universal and Illumination’s Minions marched into the Middle Kingdom today with an estimated $20.1M (125M yuan) opening. That makes it the biggest opening day for an animated film ever in China; roughly 50% higher than the previous record held by Kung Fu Panda 2 (81M yuan). In more recent comps, it’s 40% higher than…