Summary

• Despite its impressive box office total, Despicable Me 4 falls short of the franchise's historical success.
• The movie's $577 million worldwide earnings make it the third biggest film of the year.
• While profitable, Despicable Me 4 lags behind other franchise entries, raising concerns for Minions 3's success.

The Despicable Me movies being made at the time of Despicable Me 4's release. The expansion with two Minions prequels helped make the series even bigger than before. That meant increased expectations of what Despicable Me 4's box office performance could hold if the sequel were as big as some of the other installments.

When I did the site's predictions for the highest grossing movies of 2024 at the beginning of the year, Despicable Me 4 was projected to be at the top. The franchise's strength over the last 14 years indicated that interest in Gru and the Minions was as big as ever before. To date, Despicable Me 4 has made $577 million worldwide, which is an incredibly impressive total. How that stacks up against the year's other biggest releases is excellent. The only issue is that the Despicable Me franchise has greater box office expectations than what Despicable Me 4 can achieve.

Despicable Me 4's Box Office Is A Massive Success

It's The Third Biggest Movie Of The Year

Almost any other movie released in 2024 would be lucky to have Despicable Me 4's current box office total. With it guaranteed to eclipse the $600 million mark and even go beyond that, the movie is a bonafide success. Only Inside Out 2 and Dune: Part Two made more at the box office than what Despicable Me 4 has made so far. There is no realm where it catches Inside Out 2 at this point, but it very well could make up the $150 million difference between it and Dune 2.

There is no debate at this point that Despicable Me 4 was a successful movie for Illumination. It topped high-profile releases like Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Kung Fu Panda 4, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Bad Boys: Ride or Die, and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. The film reportedly only has a budget of $100 million, according to Variety. With a box office total nearly six times the production cost, Despicable Me 4 is a massively profitable release for the studio - and that's before factoring in merchandise or any other additional income.

Despicable Me's Franchise Box Office Makes Despicable Me 4's Performance Look Worse

It's The Franchise's Second Lowest Grossing Film

The problem for Despicable Me 4 is that the other movies in the franchise almost all did substantially better. Despicable Me 4 has only beaten the original Despicable Me's box office of $543.2 million worldwide. Every other Despicable Me and Minions movie finished with totals of over $940 million. That is why there was a very real expectation that the sequel would sur the $1 billion milestone, ing Despicable Me 3 and Minions as the franchise installments to do so.

There is now a genuinely strong chance that Despicable Me 4 will go down as one of the franchise's lowest grossing entries by a wide margin. It needs to make up over $360 million just to crack the $900 million barrier that every other entry besides the first did. It also will likely finish its theatrical run below the franchise's average box office total of $871 million. Despicable Me 4 will still be very successful monetarily regardless of where it finishes in the $600-$800 million range. But that is weaker for the franchise than you would expect.

Despicable Me 4's Box Office Makes Minions 3 A Bigger Risk

Minions 3 Was Announced After Despicable Me 4

The outlook of Despicable Me 4's box office is more intriguing to consider since Illumination has already confirmed plans for the franchise to go on. In the aftermath of the film's release, the studio confirmed that Minions 3 is in development and coming out in 2027. This tells us all we need to know about what Illumination thinks of Despicable Me 4's performance and the franchise's future. They are confident enough to move forward with another movie in the universe, and rightfully so after making a great profit off the sequel.

Yet, there is still some risk involved with Minions 3 now. The franchise has now experienced a rather sizable drop between how Despicable Me 3 and Despicable Me 4 performed. Minions: The Rise of Gru already made over $200 million less than the original Minions, so there is a chance that the third installment could have a significant drop, similar to the universe's last two sequels. If Minions 3 makes $700 million at the box office, it should still be a successful film. Still, Illumination will surely be hoping it will have a total much higher than Despicable Me 4.

Source: Variety