'Minions' movies have been runaway hits - but is 'franchise fatigue' finally setting in?

By Lukas I. Alpert

The new 'Minions & Monsters' film is the seventh in the series, and is expected to bring in less than previous releases

"Minions & Monsters" is set for its opening weekend.

There have been few film franchises that have produced virtually guaranteed box-office success quite like the "Minions" movies.

But the seventh installment, "Minions & Monsters," is expected to have a slower opening weekend than any of the previous films, raising questions as to whether "franchise fatigue" might be setting in.

Universal Pictures, the studio behind the animated film, has projected a five-day domestic box office of $90 million over the period that includes the long Fourth of July holiday weekend. Industry analysts, however, have estimated that the film will more likely take in between $70 million and $80 million overall.

That would be well below the $107 million that "Minions: The Rise of Gru" raked in on its opening weekend in 2022 and the $115 million that the first "Minions" spinoff took in back in 2015.

"This is a franchise that is perhaps a bit long in tooth, so it is not crazy to think that there might be some franchise fatigue and a natural decline in the box office for this one," said Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder of Box Office Theory.

A person close to the matter said the studio is not concerned about the film's expected performance and was projecting that it would deliver strong numbers over the course of its theatrical run.

The franchise began with the success of "Despicable Me" in 2010, with four films in that series, plus three more movies in a spinoff series focused specifically on the highly popular yellow, goggle-wearing, gibberish-speaking Minion characters.

From the beginning, the films served almost like a license to print money for Universal, which is owned by Comcast (CMCSA).

Two of the six previous films brought in over $1 billion dollars in global box office, with three more bringing in over $900 million. The first film took in $543 million globally in 2010, which would amount to $834 million in today's dollars.

Overall, the film franchise has raked in over $5.6 billion worldwide, making it the 14th-highest-grossing film series of all time - just behind "The Lord of the Rings" films and slightly ahead of the "Transformers" movies.

Even if the box-office falloff materializes as expected, the film is still expected to be a success for Universal. Mike Hickey, a media analyst at Benchmark Equity Research, noted that the new entry cost less to produce than previous movies in the series, making a softer opening less detrimental.

"'Minions & Monsters' was produced for approximately $85 million, below the roughly $100 million budgets of prior franchise entries, reducing its break-even threshold despite a softer projected opening," Hickey wrote in a note to clients.

Robbins said that the new "Minions" movie was opening up during a challenging week, as it's pitted against the ongoing, runaway success of "Toy Story 5," which has brought in over $600 million worldwide in less than two weeks in theaters.

"That makes it a very competitive market for family movies right now," he said.

Robbins noted that the Fourth ofJuly holiday - when fewer people typically go to the movies - falls over the weekend. Additionally, the draw of World Cup matches and the blisteringly hot weather in parts of the U.S. could combine to hurt the film's potential opening box office.

He added that animated movies sometimes have longer tails than many other movies, so a soft opening wouldn't necessarily be a death knell for "Minions & Monsters."

"It may come up short at first, but sometimes a film like this will continue to do well for the rest of the summer," Robbins said.

-Lukas I. Alpert

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07-02-26 1651ET