Minions—the babbling, yellow, goggle-eyed stars of the Despicable Me animated-movie franchise—have a history of rallying together to follow their hapless leaders. This weekend, it was children and their parents who got in line, and in droves.
Illumination Entertainment’s “Minions: The Rise of Gru” blew away initial box-office expectations to gross $108.5 million domestically in the strongest opening weekend for an animated-feature film since before the Covid-19 pandemic, a heartening sign for Hollywood studios that had been unsure whether family movies would recover as quickly as big-event films targeted at grown-ups have.
