Despicable fun
Animated films are big business – and getting bigger, says Digital Cinema Media’s CEO Simon Rees – so it’s no wonder brands are leaping on them.
The animated tale of Gru, the ex-supervillain adjusting to family life and an attempted honest-living while his minions are being quietly kidnapped for some malevolent purpose, has surpassed all expectations at the Box Office this year.
To date, the sequel to Despicable Me has already taken £43,861,335 and is now comfortably the biggest film of the year ahead of January’s monster hit Les Misérables and April’s Iron Man 3.
The first Despicable Me was a big hit, grossing over £20 million in 2010, but even the most optimistic person would have struggled to predict just how sought after the sequel would be.
Film critic Mark Kermode revelled in the increased role of the goggle-eyed Minions and their scene-stealing capers: “These yellow weebles are comedy gold, their slapstick antics blending a simplicity of form with a complexity of expression rooted in the traditions of silent cinema. Having laughed my way through pretty much the entire film, I left the cinema to the sound of a child announcing; ‘That was the best movie ever!'”
Thinkway Toys and Mattel were just two of the advertisers to book into Despicable Me 2 and they cited the audience profile, families’ engagement in a shared activity and the quality time spent in the immersive cinema environment as the key drivers behind their media choice.
The good news for families, Mark Kermode and advertisers is that 2014 will see the Minions take centre stage in The Untitled Minions Project, currently scheduled for release on 19 December.
It’s not just Gru and his Minions that are attracting families to the cinema however. Although last year, there was only one animated hit in the Top 10 (Ice Age: Continental Drift), to date we have four: Despicable Me 2, Monsters University, The Croods and Wreck it Ralph.
This trend looks set to continue in the coming years. In 2014 we can look forward to Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur, How to Train Your Dragon 2 and the first Lego movie. And in 2015, the year that is predicted to be the biggest blockbuster year in history, Pixar will release Inside Out and a sequel to Finding Nemo, Finding Dory, while Fox will unveil Penguins of Madagascar and a new Peanuts movie.
This investment in big animated films shows how the family audience is increasingly important for filmmakers, cinema owners and brands. More than 80% of families go to the cinema and they account for 45% of all cinema visits (75.6 million admissions).
In spite of the many distractions of modern family life, cinema remains a rare chance to unplug from the distractions of work and home and spend quality time together.
This shared viewing aspect to cinema is one of its greatest assets as a medium. Sharing heightens the emotions and deepens the experience, while the talkability aspect paves the way for deeper interaction.