Illumination will return to the Annecy International Animation Film Festival this June (a couple of weeks later than normal) with a fest-opening screening of Minions & Monsters, extending a long-running relationship between the studio, the event, and its Paris-based production pipeline.
The premiere underscores how closely Illumination’s identity is tied to France. While the box-office behemoth’s headquarters are in the U.S., the company’s films are largely animated at Illumination Studios Paris, the rebranded successor to Mac Guff, which partnered with Illumination on 2010’s Despicable Me and helped establish the Minions franchise.
Since then, Annecy has served as a recurring launch platform for many of the studio’s biggest titles, reinforcing both its European production roots and its position within the global animation industry. Annecy, the world’s oldest and most prestigious animation-dedicated festival, has increasingly become a stage for major studio premieres alongside independent features, and now hosts titles from all the Hollywood majors.
Minions & Monsters continues that pattern as the latest entry in Illumination’s most commercially successful franchise, which has generated billions at the global box office and remains central to Universal Pictures’ animation strategy.
Minions & Monsters is directed by Academy Award nominee Pierre Coffin, a director of the first three Despicable Me films and the first Minions film. Coffin has also provided the voice for the Minions since their film debut in 2010. The film is written by Brian Lynch (Minions, The Secret Life of Pets films) and Pierre Coffin, and is produced by Illumination’s founder and CEO, Chris Meledandri, and by Bill Ryan (executive producer, The Super Mario Bros. Movie).