Illumination Founder Confirms ‘Sing’ and ‘Secret Life of Pets’ Sequels Are in the Works

More than a decade ago, Illumination launched with Despicable Me, the company’s first feature film that would establish them as a serious contender for Disney and Pixar in the realm of animation. The movie was powered by an all-star voice cast and helmed by Academy Award nominees Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud, two names who would remain at the forefront of Illumination’s slate of films, and introduced audiences to the mischievous little henchmen now known globally as the Minions. This year, Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri is proud to present Minions & Monsters, the third of these rascals’ standalone movies and the seventh in the entire Despicable Me universe, which will be celebrating its world premiere at the Annecy International Film Festival: “the single best place in the world to screen an animated film,” Meledandri tells Collider’s Steve Weintraub.

For Minions & Monsters, Coffin is joined by co-director Patrick Delage (Despicable Me 4) and co-writer Brian Lynch (Minions) to reintroduce these rambunctious fan-favorite creatures in a sort of love letter to Old Hollywood, packed with exciting surprises for audiences. This 100% true story regales us with all the details of how the Minions conquered Hollywood, soared to celebrity status as movie stars, lost it all, and unleashed monsters onto the world. Cue the hero arc, when the Minions inevitably band together to save the world from the mayhem they created. The Minions & Monsters voice cast includes Allison Janney, Christoph Waltz, Jeff Bridges, Zoey Deutch, Trey Parker, and so many more.

Before the Minions’ world debut at Annecy, don’t miss Collider’s in-depth conversation with Meledandri, covering all the most exciting up-and-coming projects from Illumination’s roster. Meledandri, founder and CEO of the animation company, shares updates for all of Illumination’s most anticipated movies, from sequels to original IP in the works. He talks about the status of Sing 3 and The Secret Life of Pets 3, their collaboration with Mattel on an animated Barbie movie, the potential for a solo Starfox movie after The Super Mario Galaxy Movie’s epic box office success, and more. For all this and more, check out the full conversation below!

‘Sing 3’ and ‘The Secret Life of Pets 3’ Are on the Way, But Illumination’s Next Movie Is an Original

“These are clearly two movies that not only do I love, but the filmmakers love them.”

COLLIDER: Congrats on Minions & Monsters. It really is a love letter to Old Hollywood. What does it mean to you to have the film’s world premiere at Annecy?

CHRIS MELEDANDRI: It is the single best place in the world to screen an animated film, and when we’re opening night, it’s even more special. It is the greatest collection of animation fans and animators, and there’s no audience who understands the artistry of what’s been created in a movie like Minions & Monsters like the group of fans and animators at Annecy. It is the single coolest place to screen an animated movie in the world.

It’s going to be interesting. I know the energy there, and it’s pretty crazy. It’s fantastic to see animated movies there.

MELEDANDRI: Yes, it’s great energy. That audience really appreciates films in a way that is hard to find in any other audience in the world, because of just their knowledge of animation. So, they’re excited, we’re excited. It’s just an absolute thrill after spending years making a movie to see the response. It is the single greatest audience in the world to screen an animated film, and I’m absolutely confident we’re going to just have a thrilling opening night.

I am very confident you are going to have a very, very good night. I love the movie Wreck-It Ralph, which is not yours, but I love the movie, and it’s because of how many characters are in the film. Have you ever discussed making an Illumination movie where all the characters are somehow in the same movie?

MELEDANDRI: We haven’t. Other than a passing notion, we’ve never actually sat down to work on that idea. I find it quite daunting. Perhaps it’s something that we’ll look at later on, and somebody might have a great idea about how to do it in a manner that would be organic. My fear, just on concept, would be finding a way not to feel trapped in the artifice of the concept. And all the more credit to Wreck-It Ralph for figuring that out.

What is the status of another Sing movie and The Secret Life of Pets?

MELEDANDRI: Well, these are clearly two movies that not only do I love, but the filmmakers love them. The studio loves them. We have been working on both. They’re both, I would say, in active development. It took us a while to come back to Pets, waiting for an idea that we felt really would earn its place rather than simply just making another Pets movie. I think we found a way into a Secret Life of Pets story that I certainly love. We’re working with Chris Renaud, who not only was the co-director of Despicable Me with Pierre Coffin, but also the original director of Pets. So, we are well underway, working hard on an idea that I’m hoping that we’ll make soon.

What do you want to tell people about where you’re at with Sing 3?

MELEDANDRI: Garth Jennings, who was the writer-director of the previous Sing movies, is focusing all of his energy right now with the team at Illumination, developing what I believe is going to be a Sing movie that is honoring what we all love about the film, but is also introducing some entirely new ideas into the story. So, both Sing and Pets are getting a tremendous amount of attention inside the studio, and I expect we’ll have some announcements to make about both of them relatively soon.

Right now, it’s 2026. How far out as a studio are you planning? How far out do you have your movies figured out? Do you know what you’re releasing in 2028, 2029, and 2030?

MELEDANDRI: The time horizon that I’m looking at right now takes us to 2029, 2030, 2031. I don’t have every film exactly slotted in, but I’d say we have a pretty good picture of what the slate will look like, certainly through 2030. There are certain pieces that might move, but we have a pretty good idea about the overall complexion of the slate.

The one area where, if I’m going to be self-critical for a minute, I want there to be even more attention inside the company is continuing to identify what our original films are. Our next film that will come out after Minions & Monsters will be an original, no underlying material. Don’t get me wrong, we love adapting IP, and it’s incredible to be in a position where you can make films based on a set of continuing characters, but sometimes we find ourselves in this position where the existing films start to crowd out the energy that we’re spending on looking for what those original next films are.

It’s very difficult for original IP, but I feel that a lot of people now know the Illumination brand. They know what an Illumination movie is. When you first launched with Despicable Me, I remember you telling me you were trying to establish making it like a Pixar or a Disney. Do you feel that the audience now knows what an Illumination movie means, and as a CEO, how are you balancing the need to push for original with the tried-and-true sequels that you know are going to succeed?

MELEDANDRI: When we started, the objective was never to achieve ubiquity with Illumination, because I felt like that was an ambition that was just too grand and not realistic. I’ve always hesitated to compare ourselves to Disney or to Pixar, who were obviously the pioneers. We followed in Pixar’s footsteps. However, even a partial awareness can make an incredibly significant difference — a partial awareness of Illumination and just the promise that if it’s an Illumination film for a subset of our audience, they feel, “Oh, let me check out what it is.”

Simply to get a subset of our audience to search out information about our films is a big leg up. It was a big leg up when we started as an ambition, and in today’s world, where our ability to use traditional means to market films has become increasingly diluted, it’s even that much more important today. So, we do research, and we look to see how the Illumination name is sticking, and we’re always surprised to discover that there’s more awareness than we thought. We look not only in the United States, but we’ll go and research other countries, as well.

But it continues to be something that I feel is an essential component of our ability to develop material based on completely original ideas because, as we know, gaining even just an awareness of an original story today is harder than it’s ever been before.

Barbie Is Making a Movie Comeback Thanks to Illumination

Greta Gerwig’s live-action movie shattered box office records.

I read that you guys are talking to Mattel about a Barbie movie. Is this true?

MELEDANDRI: It is true, and we’re working very closely with Mattel. For us and Mattel, the first threshold that we needed to get past was a belief that we could do something that was utterly distinct from the live-action movie, which I really liked a lot, and obviously audiences liked a lot. So, it was really important for us that we found a way in through story that could set us completely apart from that film and in no way make it feel like we were really trying to kind of squeeze into the terrain that they so beautifully establish in that movie. I think we found that way in, and so we’re working hard on that. But until we dig deeper, we won’t know for sure.

Do you have a filmmaker on it, or is it all still being figured out?

MELEDANDRI: We don’t yet have a filmmaker on it that we’re collaborating with outside of just the Illumination and Mattel development ecosystem. We’ve yet to put on a filmmaker, and we’re still in the story definition phases.

What’s Next for Mario, Star Fox, and Nintendo on the Big Screen?

“There’s tremendous goodwill on both sides to continue exploring things.”

Image via Universal Pictures, Illumination, and Nintendo

The Super Mario Bros. Movie and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie both made over $1 billion, which is a staggering amount of money, especially in today’s box office. I am curious: When are you announcing the next one, and does it already have a title?

MELEDANDRI: I can’t tell you when we’d announce the next one, because I don’t know when we’re going to announce the next one. But look, this collaboration with Nintendo is something that’s become a very important part of Illumination, and so the idea that we’ll continue to work together is something that we’re very excited about.

I know a third one is coming. It’s just a question of when you guys are going to announce it. When I mentioned to everyone at Collider that I was going to talk to you, a lot of people asked me to ask you what the status of a Starfox solo movie is, because he was so well received in the last one?

MELEDANDRI: Listen, the whole idea of crossing IP between Nintendo properties is something that, along with Shigeru Miyamoto, we explored with a tremendous amount of conversation, and ultimately, we take our cues from Miyamoto-san. If he believes that it can work, then we develop the courage of our convictions about the idea. So, this was something that he really did have a sense could work, and we were thrilled to see a positive response from it. Where that will lead in the future is not something that I can say at this time.

I totally get it. Are you discussing other Nintendo IP that Illumination will hopefully bring to life?

MELEDANDRI: I have a lot of conversations with Nintendo, not only as their partner in making movies, but also as my role on their board. So, I’m in discussions with Nintendo all the time about every facet of their business by virtue of this very privileged position that I share with them on the board. All I can say is that clearly the collaboration is working, so there’s tremendous goodwill on both sides to continue exploring things.

I know you have to be careful with Nintendo.

Chris Meledandri Also Shares His Thoughts on ‘Shrek 5’ and Netflix’s Long-Delayed ‘Dragon’s Lair’ Movie

DreamWorks just shared a new trailer for the long-awaited sequel.

Image via DreamWorks

You’re producing Shrek 5. Am I right about this?

MELEDANDRI: Yes. My relationship with Shrek and the Shrek franchise is very specific to that role. I don’t take on the same role of creative responsibility that I do with the Illumination films. I view myself more as a consultant. They have a tremendous team over there, led by Margie Cohn. There’s an amazing team making Shrek 5, so I’m thrilled to be part of it. It’s been really exciting for me to watch how another studio makes films, other than just Illumination, or going back to my previous days at Fox, working with Blue Sky, and then even earlier with Don Bluth. Every time I get to see how an animation process works, I’m learning, so this experience on Shrek, and I played a similar role on the most recent Puss in Boots movie, as well, is something I really enjoy, and I love the fact that it’s very different from my relationship with the Illumination films.

You mentioned Don Bluth, and I love Don Bluth. I know Netflix has the rights to Dragon’s Lair, and I think they’re still in development on it, but how has it taken this long for Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace to be adapted into another medium?

MELEDANDRI: I just look back to when we first started talking about the adaptation of Super Mario into a movie. Obviously, there had been a ton of video game adaptations, but it was more perceived as challenging to adapt a video game into a movie than obvious. So, I think that video games in general, looking backwards, were facing headwinds. But those those early games of Don’s occupy such a special place in the minds of people who, today, adore movies. I think that it would be a really cool thing to see Dragon’s Lair developed into a film.

Why the Minions Are Integral to Illumination’s Past, Present, and Future

“I just felt like, ‘Oh my God, there’s something here that is just so appealing.'”

Image via Universal Pictures

When you look back at the first Despicable Me movie, what part of Illumination’s DNA was already there, and what part would you only discover later?

MELEDANDRI: I think there was so much of Illumination’s DNA discovered through the process of making that first film. First of all, it was a film that fulfilled the desire that I had to take creative forces from many different backgrounds and cultures and weave them together to make a film. Given that we were making movies for audiences all over the world, I felt like the complexion of our creative leads and artists should in some way mirror that diversity.

Despicable Me was first an idea that, originally, the concept belonged to Sergio Pablos, a Spanish animator who had worked at Disney and moved back to Spain to create a studio. It was directed by Chris Renaud, an American, and Pierre Coffin, who’s clearly French. It was scored by a Brazilian composer, Heitor Pereira, working with an American composer, Pharrell Williams. And, if you go up and down the line, written by two Americans, Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio, animated in France, storyboard artists in many different parts of the world. So that, to me, was an ambition that I had that was realized on that film, and has continued to be an important part of our filmmaking.

But I really credit the artists in France for being so important to defining a sensibility that Illumination films have that, to me, is this combination of always having a bit of subversion combined with this sweetness, but the sweetness is not sweetness that’s going to come hit you over the head, but it’s there. You can always find the sweetness inside of these characters, no matter how flawed they are. I think no better example than Bowser. I love that character so much, and I love how the team adapted that character in the movies because you ultimately understand him and you care about him in spite of all of his villainous activities. So, that sensibility, which is always something that appealed to me, personally, really came to life in that first Despicable Me, that contrast.

And I find the artistry in Illumination films — full credit to our teams of directors and artists sitting in Paris, 800 of them, who are working every day on these movies — to be magnificent. I love it. I think at first, it began to assert itself in that first Despicable Me. Designs of many of the characters and of the worlds by Eric Guillon began to establish a color palette, an artistic level of ambition that I find has also been carried through all of our films. However, we are clearly a work in progress, so I really hope that we never sit still and go, “Okay, well, we really like what’s happened in the past, so we’ll just do more of it in the future.” There’s always a tendency to get sucked into complacency when you find that what you’re doing is entertaining audiences, and I hope that that’s something that we as a company can continually disrupt ourselves out of.

You can’t predict what’s going to happen with a character when you’re creating it and putting it on screen. The audience has to naturally love something. When did you actually realize people love the Minions, not like a little bit, but like a global phenomenon? Do you remember when you first realized you were tapped into something?

MELEDANDRI: Well, it happens in stages, and the first stage can be very flawed, which is, “What do I personally think of it?” So when Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud, and Eric Guillon first came to me and said, “Listen, we have this idea where we want Gru’s henchmen to be unlike anything that was in the original story idea. We want them to be creatures.” I clearly embraced their artistic search for what that would be. Then, when they came back and showed me the very first iteration of those characters, I couldn’t take my eyes off of them. Then, when they did a walk cycle and just some simple movement, I just felt like, “Oh my God, there’s something here that is just so appealing.”

My reaction is just my reaction, and it triggers support for artists like Pierre and Chris and Eric. But then you watch what happens in the studio, and you watch the team respond to a character. When you start to see that excitement inside the studio as the character evolves, it’s a really good indication of what you’re going to discover outside. It’s not 100% because there are definitely things that 300 artists are going to respond to that the rest of the world may not, but it’s a good indicator.

Then, it was actually in the early stages of marketing the movie, when we began to expose the characters, that we knew that the chemistry that we had felt with the characters was going to spread. You have no idea how far it goes, but we just knew that our reaction was going to be mirrored by the audience’s reaction.

Image via Illumination

One of the things that Illumination is able to do, compared to a lot of other companies, is keep the costs down. It seems like you manage costs effectively. How have you been able to do this when a lot of other companies are spending a lot more?

MELEDANDRI: Listen, I will tell you that I had a huge motivation in the beginning, which is I was focused clearly on just trying to make sure that our first movie was profitable so there could be a second movie. So, there were many components that went into my trying to ensure that, from what idea, who the artists were, all of these different facets. But one of them was controlling cost.

Now, when you control costs like that, you also have to make a lot of choices and a lot of decisions because you can’t do everything that our team would want to do because you have to focus. Chris Renaud and Pierre Coffin, as our directors, were 100% committed to working towards those goals. And then I was very lucky because I had a genius producing partner named Janet Healy, who probably knows more about animation production than anybody I’ve ever met, who moved to Paris and worked hand in hand with the core team that was there — we started out with about 90 people and started building up from there — and really defined a production ecosystem that could hit our budget targets.

Now, look, Steve, our trend line, it’s just natural, this notion of creep. It just creeps up. I also have to say that a lot of the other studios who had been working at budget levels that were unfathomable realized that they needed to find a way to come back down. So, while I still believe that we work at efficiency levels that I’m very proud of, that differential between us and everybody else is not as radical as it once was.

I completely get it. Also, let’s be honest, when a filmmaker has been working at a studio for such a long time, they’re going to get raises, and deservedly so, because huge success should be compensated.

MELEDANDRI: Yes. Yes.

What is a note that you find yourself giving all the time at Illumination to filmmakers or animators, or the people you speak to?

MELEDANDRI: This will maybe surprise people because sometimes people have remarked that our movies maybe move too fast, but when you work with a team of animators who are as incredible as the team at Illumination in Paris, what you’re going to get from performance is ultimately going to make such an impact on the audience. They’re just going to feel it. So, we have an incredible team of writers, and our writers stay with us year in, year out, most of them, so we definitely honor and appreciate the word and the stories, but I find myself saying, “Really open up the spaces in between the words and let the animation breathe.”

There’s such a tendency to pack things in and to move at a cinematic pace that doesn’t lag, and I really feel like that’s the place where we can discover so much more at Illumination. I really feel that in our next couple of films, starting with Minions & Monsters. Even though there’s all of this kind of chaos that we all know from the Minions, Pierre Coffin has really approached the storytelling with more breathing room than ever before.

Do you think modern animated sequels need to age with their original audience, or stay locked into the age of the newest kids discovering them?

MELEDANDRI: I don’t think there’s any one answer to that. I think that what I’ve observed is the following: So much of this we can learn in hindsight, and we may look smart looking backwards, but a lot of this just happened. If you look at Despicable Me, what happened was we had our original audience from the first couple of movies, who were the kid portion of that audience, and then as they aged, and let’s say they became tweens and early teens, they fell off, and, eh, it wasn’t cool enough. It was for their younger brother and sister.

There’s this quite extraordinary person who I’ve come to have great respect for, who owns a company in Japan called Beams, which is a clothing company, and about seven years ago, we were meeting, and he said, “I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen once you hit the 10-plus mark of 10 years after the first movie.” He said, “That audience that was with you when they were children and then left you when they became tweens and teens, once you come back after 10 years, they’re coming back, driven by nostalgia.”

Actually, at that time, we had this meeting. It was pre-COVID, and Minions: The Rise of Gru was scheduled to come out eight and a half years after the original, and so I was like, “Well, how about if it’s under 10 years?” I may have my years off by a couple, but you’ll get the gist of this. He said, “I don’t know.” He may have been saying 12 years; I can’t remember exactly the time frame, and my math is bad, but when COVID hit, we made that decision with Universal to hold the movie and not release it on streaming. We never were thinking about this, but by the time the movie came out, it hit that time frame that they had laid out for us, and that audience came rushing back, just like magic.

Then, as we’ve looked backward, even the last Despicable Me, our audience was 50% family opening weekend and 50% non-family, which means teens and adults with no kids. So, organically, you get new generations of kids. I think what’s far more interesting to me is watching to see when and if your audience you started with is still with you, or when they come back if they’re not, and I think it will vary for every movie.

It was interesting watching all the people dressed up go see the movie.

MELEDANDRI: Yes, it was Minions: The Rise of Gru, post-COVID. The movie that we held.

I remember seeing it all on the news, on TikTok. It was everywhere. You must have been so happy seeing all that happening.

MELEDANDRI: It was great. Then the thing that immediately starts happening is people start asking you, “What did you guys do to make this happen?” And I’m like, “We did nothing,” okay? We had nothing to do with it. [Laughs] It was a gift from the heavens. I think what we probably could say we did was we made a movie in the first Despicable Me that lodged deeply into the audience so that when they reached a certain point of feeling nostalgic, they came rushing back.

Trey Parker Returns to the Despicable Me Universe in ‘Minions & Monsters’

Parker played the villainous Balthazar Bratt in ‘Despicable Me 3.’

Image via Illumination

I’ll end with this question about Minions & Monsters. Trey Parker is in the movie. I’m a huge fan of Trey Parker, and he has a pretty big role in the third act. Can you talk about getting Trey in the movie? He’s such a brilliant writer. How much did he work with the script, or was he just reading the dialogue? Talk about collaborating with him, because it’s pretty crazy that you got him in the movie.

MELEDANDRI: This is the second time we’ve worked with Trey. Pierre and Trey have just a great chemistry. Trey will always do things in a record that will surprise you. He’s incapable of not doing that. But I remember the first time we worked with Trey. We finished a recording session, and he said, “Let me tell you why I love doing this so much.” He said, “When I walk out of this room, I don’t have to think about this story until I’m back in three or four months. On everything else I do, when I walk out of a recording booth, I’m besieged with all of the questions and challenges of getting story, getting narrative, to work.” And he said, “It makes me feel so good that that’s on you guys. To me, I’ve got the freedom to leave it all behind.” And I truly think that is quite a liberating feeling for him. So, he really doesn’t work with us on anything other than when he’s in that booth with Pierre.

What do you want to tease about his character?

MELEDANDRI: What I would say about his character is that he plays a monster in this movie who has one of the great designs of an Illumination film. He is quite surprising in his combination of charm and deception. I think that he worked so well as a character for me because he’s embodying these qualities that we love about Trey meeting up with these qualities of Pierre Coffin as a filmmaker. So, he’s filled with surprises, but it’s his attitude that I find irresistible.

Minions & Monsters opens in theaters and in IMAX on July 1.

Release Date

June 24, 2026

Runtime

90 minutes