It’s the number one movie in America over the 4th of July holiday, but it kinda feels like audiences said No Tank Yu to the Minions this weekend. “Minions & Monsters,” which is the seventh film in the “Despicable Me” franchise and the third spinoff “Minions” movie, opened with a franchise low of just $62 million domestic across the 5-day holiday weekend.
Globally, it did much better, bringing in $160.5 million total so far, and with a budget of just $85 million, that’s plenty to justify another sequel. But considering that “Minions & Monsters” was supposed to be the anchor of the domestic box office for the holiday weekend, generally one of the most lucrative of the year, this is a letdown. Rentrak reported that this July 4 was down 23 percent compared to July 2025, bringing in only $121.3 million at the entire domestic box office for the weekend. “Supergirl,” which in its second weekend plummeted a dismal 74 percent for just $9.6 million, didn’t help in that regard.
But what went wrong with the Minions this time around? They’ve been pretty much bulletproof for the last 16 years dating back to the original “Despicable Me” in 2010, but seven movies is a lot in that span. The last “Minions” spinoff movie, 2022’s “Minions: The Rise of Gru,” had the second-biggest opening of the franchise and the overall highest domestic gross with $370.5 million. 2024’s “Despicable Me 4” is slightly behind that with $361 million domestic after a $75 million opening.
Keep in mind, $75 million for “Despicable Me 4” was for a 3-day weekend. It performed even better over the same July 4 weekend, and for “Minions & Monsters,” this one had a 3-day weekend that was roughly half the last one with $36.4 million. So even if “Minions & Monsters” legs out to the same staggering degree that “Despicable Me 4” did, nearly 5X its initial gross, it would top out at around $175 million domestic.
If you look at the audience breakdown between the films, the percentages of men vs. women, 25 over and under, and racial demographics were almost all identical. The CinemaScore for this film was an A-, and reviews for the film are some of the best in the entire franchise (this film is an ode to Old Hollywood and is packed with silent movie and Golden Age references), with a 69 on Metacritic and 91 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
If it’s not just Minion fatigue (do they have a word for that in Minionese?), it could be that “Toy Story 5” was too big of competition. That movie in its third weekend made another $31 million, slightly behind “Minions & Monsters” and good enough for second place on the week. But even “Despicable Me 4” was up against “Inside Out 2,” and “Minions: The Rise of Gru” was up against “Lightyear,” so that’s always been a barrier for the Illumination franchise and it’s never been an issue before.
Illumination, though, is doing just fine. “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” surpassed $1 billion at the global box office earlier this year and is already on Peacock cleaning up. Dated for April 16, 2027 is an original Illumination movie called “Not Alone,” and the studio has a few other dates on the calendar, including one unspecified Nintendo movie for 2028. That could be another Mario movie or it could be an animated team-up film like a “Super Smash Bros.” film or “Star Fox” or “Donkey Kong” spinoff. Threequels to “The Secret Life of Pets” and “Sing” could also be in the offing.
We don’t see the Minions going away for good anytime soon, but maybe the audience is telling us it’s time to give the little yellow pillboys some much-needed time away.
