Minions & Monsters hits digital early after sluggish box office
Universal is pushing Minions & Monsters to digital ahead of schedule after a muted cinema run — and the franchise-first reason for the hurry won’t please diehards.
Bit of a rough patch for Universal’s beloved yellow mascots, then. Minions & Monsters, the latest animated outing from the Despicable Me universe, has delivered the franchise’s worst box office showing yet—enough to make the studio throw in the towel on a proper theatrical run, and hoof it to digital release faster than you can say "banana".
Minions & Monsters sits nearly $94 million behind the franchise’s previous lowest earner, Despicable Me.
Box Office Breakdown (And Why It Matters)
The numbers tell a pretty clear story. Globally, Minions & Monsters has managed $450.4 million—with $169.7 million coming from US cinemas, and the other $280.7 million scraped together overseas. If you’re thinking that sounds... underwhelming, you’d be right: even the first Despicable Me (from yonks ago, when iPhones still had a home button) made nearly $100 million more. To make things worse, this total doesn’t look likely to improve much, unless Japan’s yet-to-report numbers pull off some sort of box office miracle. Not a bet I’d take, personally.
- Domestic opening: $37 million from 4,243 cinemas—launched on July 1
- Peak release: Topped out at 4,244 screens
- Runtime: 1 hour 30 minutes, PG certificate
In a nutshell, the film never really found its feet. Daily ticket sales tumbled almost immediately after the July 1 release, even with the handy Independence Day boost. And after just 34 days in US cinemas, they barely cleared $170 million domestically.
What's This One About, Anyway?
Plot-wise, this time the Minions are running about 1920s Hollywood, trying to wrangle up various spooky beasties for a monster flick they’re supposedly producing. Doubtless much slapstick, shouting, and the kind of gibberish only small children find funny ensue. Family-friendly nonsense, in other words.
Digital Release: Fast-Tracked
Universal’s not hanging about. Instead of the traditional months-long wait, they’ve marked the film for a digital home debut on 11 August. That’s unusually quick for an animated tentpole—normally they’d milk every last cinema ticket before dumping it online. The logic is as blatant as it gets: make what you can via digital purchase and rental before the film limps off to streaming, because the box office well has pretty much run dry.
Even if the film manages a surprise bump once Japanese receipts trickle in, it’s a pretty safe bet this’ll go down as the franchise’s weakest performer—on all fronts. Every sign points to Minions & Monsters ending up as the franchise’s lowest-grossing entry, no matter how many countries are left to count.