In addition to shaping the personalities of the Minions, Renaud was also instrumental in determining their look. “You want them to always take a left turn so (the audience goes), ‘I thought I understood what they were saying but I don’t. “At the end of the day, what you don’t want (the Minions) to be doing is just speaking English,” says Renaud. “It was a challenge we had to find our way through.”įar from quiet creatures, the Minions are always saying something but what exactly they’re saying is up for debate. “We had to come up with ways to tell the story visually and we had to come up with clever ideas involving signage,” says Renaud, who, along with Coffin, voiced some of the Minions in the “Despicable Me” movies. Pushing the Minions into the spotlight presented a number of challenges for the filmmakers, including making the story coherent even though the main characters don’t speak an intelligible language. That was kind of cool because she’s the kind of character where you’re never sure where you stand with her.” She could go from petulant to enraged in a second, or from very sweet to very sharp in a short amount of time. “She brought a mercurial aspect to the character,” says Renaud. Helping give Scarlett her special charisma was Bullock, who was encouraged to lend her own brand of sizzle to the supervillain. Scarlett felt like a cool opportunity to try something different.” “We wanted the Minions’ (relationship) with Scarlett to feel different to what we’d seen already (with Gru). which was a time when society and women’s roles were changing,” notes Renaud during a phone interview from Paris, where he lives with his wife and two kids, who are 12 and 9. “The idea for a female supervillain emerged out of setting the film in the 1960s. When the Minions wind up in London, the central trio of smartypants Kevin, teen rebel Stuart and innocent Bob wind up doing the bidding for an evil boss named Scarlett Overkill (Sandra Bullock), the world’s first-ever female supervillain. Providing the voices for assorted characters are Jennifer Saunders, Geoffrey Rush, Steve Coogan, Jon Hamm, Michael Keaton and Allison Janney. Rex, a devious Dracula and a nasty Napoleon. The Minions remain the same throughout the ages: They just want to serve the most despicable of masters, including a terrifying T. (Before Gru) and winds up in the Mod London of the 1960s. Now, the Minions are front and center for their very own movie, which is, appropriately enough, called “Minions.” The PG-rated film was directed by Coffin and Kyle Balda and executive-produced by Renaud.Īn origin story, “Minions” tells you everything you always wanted to know about the yellow creatures but were afraid to ask. The little guys’ roles were expanded for “Despicable Me 2” and that film racked up $970 million, making it the fourth-highest grossing cartoon of all time behind “Frozen,” “Toy Story 3” and “The Lion King.” The hordes of yellow creatures helped turn “Despicable Me” into a $543 million-grossing success. As animated scene-stealers go, the Minions rank right up there with “Shrek’s” Puss in Boots and “Ice Age’s” Scrat.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |