Illumination has never made a better-reviewed movie than “Minions & Monsters.” It is also about to post the weakest opening weekend any Minions film has ever had.
The animated sequel is tracking for somewhere between 60 million and 90 million dollars domestically over the five-day Fourth of July frame, according to Variety’s box office analysis, with the studio’s own estimate landing near 80 million. That range is unusually wide for a franchise entry this far into its release cycle, and the spread itself says as much about how uncertain this weekend has become as any single number would.
Whatever the exact figure, it will fall well short of the two most recent films to carry the Despicable Me name. “Minions: The Rise of Gru” opened to 123 million dollars over the same five-day holiday stretch in 2022, and “Despicable Me 4” matched it almost exactly with 122 million in 2024. Even the top end of this weekend’s range would be a steep drop from either predecessor, and the low end is closer to half.
The reviews tell a different story entirely. “Minions & Monsters” opened to a 93 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes that has since settled closer to 89, still the highest mark any Illumination release has ever carried. Critics have described it as an affectionate homage to classic monster-movie cinema rather than another disposable spinoff, the kind of reception that usually accompanies bigger numbers, not smaller ones.
Two explanations keep surfacing for the gap, and neither has much to do with the movie itself. The Fourth of July falls on a Saturday this year, which spreads family attention toward barbecues and travel instead of theaters during what is normally a locked-in moviegoing weekend. Toy Story 5’s own outsized run this summer is the other factor analysts keep citing, on the theory that families who already spent on one animated blockbuster this season have less appetite, and less budget, for a second one so soon after.
None of this threatens the film financially in any immediate sense. The 85 million dollar budget is covered several times over by the 170 million dollar global opening Universal and Illumination are projecting, and a soft domestic number this weekend does not erase months of pre-release marketing spend already committed. What it does complicate is the story the franchise gets to tell about itself heading into whatever comes next: a studio that just delivered its best-reviewed film ever cannot simultaneously claim it as a commercial triumph if the opening lands at the bottom of its own tracking range.
The pattern is not unique to Illumination this summer. “Jackass: Best and Last” opened to franchise-best reviews on a franchise-worst weekend just days earlier, another release where critical consensus and ticket sales moved in opposite directions. Whether that is a coincidence of scheduling or a sign that audiences are simply pickier about which family and legacy titles are worth a theater trip this particular July is not something either film’s opening weekend settles on its own.
What the studio does have going for it is time. Strong reviews tend to slow a film’s decline in the weeks after opening more than they inflate the first weekend, and if “Minions & Monsters” holds the way its reception suggests it should, the eventual total could look far healthier than Friday’s number implies. That is a bet on legs, not on the box office story this weekend was supposed to tell.
For now, the studio has the reviews it wanted and not quite the opening it expected, and it will not know for weeks which of the two turns out to matter more.
