Despicable Me 4 FlickDirect Interviews Director Chris Renaud

I am here with director Chris Renaud to talk about Despicable Me 4 coming out on digital. Hello, sir. How are you? Hi, Alison. How are you doing today? I am great. Thank you. All right. Let's talk about Despicable Me 4. You directed, co-directed one and two, and then did not three, but why back for four? Well, for me, I just think it felt like a good opportunity.

I'd been a producer on Minions Rise of Gru, and sort of working with the director, Kyle Balda, on that one, and sort of was getting my hands back. I'd worked on The Secret Life of Pets 1 and 2 in the interim. And so that was an opportunity to get my hands dirty, for lack of a better word, in the Despicable Me Minions world. And so I was working on the Despicable Me 4, and I was working on the world.

And we had a very funny script from Mike White. Even though we changed a lot, we had a great foundation, which I had worked a little bit with him on and with Chris Melodondri as well as we developed that. So when it came time to direct it, I was like, yeah, that sounds like fun. Get me back into the world. And yeah, I think you see that a lot with people, obviously, had a hand in creating the world and the characters and gave me an opportunity because being a producer is, at least in the way I am, is obviously a bit more hands off.

You're not the day to day, you know, making the design decisions and all that stuff. So it just felt like a great opportunity to get back into the world. Fantastic. Yeah, we're glad you did because it is a great movie. Thank you. What was the reason for incorporating I love the superheroes and then everybody's against the end lately in movies. So tell me a little bit how that came about.

Right. Until Deadpool Wolverine, right? Right. Exactly. I think that I think, look, well, one thing is that we had been talking about giving the Minions superpowers for some time since Despicable Me 2. When we were playing with ways of what was the villain El Macho going to do with the Minions? You know, obviously, we landed on the purple evil Minions.

But, you know, we were thinking, well, would they be they have powers, blah, blah, blah. And we actually pulled out those drawings from Eric Guillaume to to take a look at what our conversations were at the time. So it was an interesting idea. And clearly, whether it's a costume or a physical transformation or getting big, we love to transform the Minions.

It's almost like a Looney Tunes kind of, you know, Daffy Duck is Robin Hood, you know. So anyway, so so we'd had this idea for a while. But at the at we were fortunate, you know, these movies take a lot of years, obviously. But we were fortunate in the moment we were in culturally that the Minions being the Minions, we could make a comment about superheroes through their ineptitude.

You know what I mean? Like, like this idea of like, you know, because initially, because there's been a lot of comedic superhero material done, some of it very good. Like what how do we make it funny and feel different? And the what eventually our way in was just to answer that question was just make the Minions. And that's kind of what you see. You know what I mean?

It's like the montage scene where they're fighting crime. The influence for me was the inspiration for me was the great scene in the Richard Donner first Superman film. But of course, in that Superman is successful. So. In our version, we had to find ways that the Minions could fail upward, as we like to say. And that that became the way that we could define how the Minions would be.

And that's what we did. And that's what we did. And that's what we did. And would be superheroes well I really like the way you at first we were kind of like oh they didn't make them into superheroes and then when they made them into superheroes that failed and people hated them I was like okay I get it and what's funny what I like about where we landed at the ending or I shouldn't say that actually well this is what I'll say what I like is where we even landed is that in some ways they don't even use their superpowers you know what I mean they they just can't help but be themselves and maybe that's their superpower is just being minions at the end of the day it's not heat vision or stretching or anything like that so that's what I like about the characters yes when they fail they fail spectacularly exactly we call it failing upward I like that so far in theaters this movie has made over 800 million dollars and now we're coming to digital you why now what was the purpose of it um why not wait a little longer tell me what the thought process was on with that well I think on that you'd have to ask people more than me above your pay grade yeah exactly above my pay grade um what I've been told and I'm going to repeat that um and I think that what I'm seeing basically supports this argument is that in this window even with something that is uh as successful as Despicable Me 4 has been um the the PVOD or the digital release much like the DVD release does not uh have a big has a negligible uh statistically negligible impact on box office return um and that seems to be holding true uh because it's interesting my my many years in this business what I've seen and I'm amazed actually is that when you after like the first two weeks I always say the first week is about the marketing the second week is about word of mouth um after those first two weeks you almost can mathematically predict to a pretty narrow margin of error what it's ultimately going to make certainly in the United States and Canada it's a little trickier um you know outside of the United States and Canada it's a little trickier um you know outside of the United States in international territories and anywhere it can be subject to storms and whatever uh there's all kinds of things that can impact it so anyway so I would say that that that's become the strategy knowing that digital release again like the DVDs and that's part of this too um is part of the overall um plan uh on on how these these films are viewed uh by an audience okay so um on this digital release we get two mini minion movies what can you say about those uh they're both really really fun I mean um I think that it's fun to put the minions again it's very much a looney tune idea right like where can we put them and and they're almost like little standalone you know pieces I don't know how many we've done to date it's a lot and we always accompany these um digital releases um with you know some fun extra content which typically are these shorts um in some cases we've even um the one short mower minions was released as a um on the head of the secret life of pets which was great so that was very old school like putting a short and then the film you know um back in the day so um no they're both terrific one is about uh guys sort of celebrating his birthday but he doesn't want to and he's kind of caught in this um I don't want to give it away and then the other one is about a guy who's playing a video game and he's like I don't want to give it away and then the other one is about a guy who's playing a video game that gets the better of them that's all I'll say but they're super fun um and uh really play like traditional cartoons um which the minions really lend themselves to that kind of format yeah and they really did from the beginning when you first started with with Despicable Me were you surprised at how big the minions became as opposed to the main characters of the film um yes and no and and I think that's a really good point I think that's a really good point I think that's a really good point um is that the strike got more and more important um so what I'm getting at is that I knew that and I think a lot of people know this you see this I mean the tradition of a Disney having a little character on the you know a little cute character on somebody's shoulder if you can nail that support character you know as a piece of comedy it's it pays huge dividends for the main characters what I would say is I didn't you know so I knew that was a goal and I and both people and I knew that the minions were something special uh from I mean even from design storyboards animation at every phase they improved uh it was just a great core idea um what I think is what I would say I didn't expect maybe is like how big it's gotten um and I think that you know I've certainly the decision to make minions in 2015 as a standalone and and that movie worked so well um which I again I think is is very difficult to pull off um you know scratch standalone movie would be tough um but um just the their universality their universal quality not to be and not to drop the universal name but their universal quality I just think is what makes them work so beautifully um you know as characters because you know even the scrat is a squirrel going for an acorn and there's kind of a limit there you know I haven't worked on some shorts with a scrat and I did my short I try to take them to a new world with the time machine but there's a limit to what you can do well the minions are practically limitless I mean you know they're invulnerable for all we know um you know you're not bogged down by you know who they are and you know you know anything really you know and so it's a very as a character set it's extremely fun and liberating to watch and I think that's a really good point I think that's a really good point to work with and I know I can tell you in this movie if we had trouble with the scene we're like well let's figure out a way to get the minions it's it's it's almost like a magic trick that we are so lucky to have at our disposal because you know whether it's you know a narrative sleight of hand or gosh we we could use a laugh here they they they're they don't know we we have to sometimes you know what's the word um monitor ourselves and you know when we even did that after one of our last previews we took a whole minion gag out we just didn't need it uh it got a laugh actually but we just it just wasn't something we needed and so so um you know so sometimes that happens too but as but as a something to have access to while you're making one of these films it's invaluable valuable because the audience this is a great spot right because the audience wants to see them and they want to laugh they want to love it and that that's gosh that's the best place you can be you