Despicable Me director Chris Renaud has zero plans for a live-action Minions movie, and he hopes to keep it that way.
The filmmaker was recently asked in an interview with Film Hounds magazine if he was ever interested in seeing the Minions make the jump from animation to live-action, given Disney’s success with it.
“God, I hope not. That’s my answer,” Renaud said in response. “I mean if there were conversations like that, I haven’t been privy to them. But for me, what defines the world is that it is animated and it allows us to get away with what we get away with. Like locking a minion in the vending machine, or you know, blowing up Gru (Steve Carell) when he attacks Vector (Jason Segel). These are really cartoon ideas, like what would have been in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.”
He continued, “I think it just becomes something completely different if you do a live-action version. For me personally, not very appealing. But again, who knows what can happen but that’s my personal feeling about it.”
Renaud helmed the first two Despicable Me films in 2010 and 2013, respectively, and then returned to direct the most recent Despicable Me 4. He’s also served as a producer on 2015’s Minions and 2022’s Minions: The Rise of Gru. Thanks to the latest installment, which hit theaters in July, the franchise also reached a notable milestone by crossing the $5 billion mark in global ticket sales — an achievement no animated franchise has reached before.
Last month, Illumination and Universal also announced plans for Minions 3, which is set to hit theaters on June 30, 2027. It will be directed by Pierre Coffin.
But Renaud isn’t the only notable in the animation space not looking to jump on the live-action bandwagon anytime soon. Pixar’s chief creative officer Pete Docter told Time magazine in June, ahead of the release of record-breaking Inside Out 2, that he isn’t a fan of the idea either.
“No, and this might bite me in the butt for saying it, but it sort of bothers me,” Docter said of live-action. “I like making movies that are original and unique to themselves. To remake it, it’s not very interesting to me personally.”
The Pixar executive also referenced 2007’s Ratatouille (There was a fan campaign to cast Josh O’Connor in a live-action adaptation), adding that a live-action film about a rat “would be tough” because “so much of what we create only works because of the rules of the [animated] world.”
“So if you have a human walk into a house that floats, your mind goes, ‘Wait a second. Hold on. Houses are super heavy. How are balloons lifting the house?’” Docter continued, referring to 2009’s Up. “But if you have a cartoon guy and he stands there in the house, you go, ‘Okay, I’ll buy it.’ The worlds that we’ve built just don’t translate very easily.”
