Despicable Me 3: How were the Minions created?

For more than 12 years, wearing their blue overalls and communicating in a language that only they understand, the Minions have been populating dark rooms and the Despicable Me franchise, until they stole the show from Gru, their Machiavellian employer.

While they have been back in theaters since July 6 in a second feature film centered on their adventures, and this evening on TF1 in Despicable Me 3, discover the origin of these curious characters, who have carved out a world fame in the blink of an eye.

Initially, as their creator Eric Guillon confided to us at the Annecy Festival in 2017, they were absolutely not supposed to take such an important place in the film, and had simply been shaped to flesh out the character of Gru:

“They were created because initially there was just a pitch with a villain. And to make it interesting, we needed to create a situation”told us the director. “To create an interaction in your drawing, you put little tricks next to it that will serve to enhance the big bad. It helps me to tell a story, we need that, and I think we have to build everything like that.”

Far from imagining that the Minions were going to turn into real international stars, afford two spin-offs at the cinema and become the mascots of the Illumination studio, Eric Guillon therefore had fun making these little characters using a very precise imagery:

“Initially, they were little French workers, with overalls, cigarettes in their mouths, berets. Renault workers as we imagined them in the 1940s. There was already the idea of ​​​​clones , they were small, numerous, and then it evolved.”

It is therefore by drawing inspiration from French workers working in a famous garage that the director of Minions gave life to these famous fellows.

(Re)discover the trailer for “Minions 2”, currently in theaters…