Animated blockbuster Despicable Me 4 will be aiming to set records across its UK-Ireland run, as it opens in 688 cinemas this weekend through Universal.
Produced by Universal-owned animation stalwarts Illumination Entertainment, the Despicable Me franchise is among the most profitable of recent decades. The first film opened to £3.9m on its way to a £20.2m total in 2010; before the sequel started with £10m and ended on £47.5m in 2013; and was in turn surpassed by Despicable Me 3, which opened to £11.2m and closed on £47.9m.
The two Minions spin-off films landed in a similar territory as the two sequels. Minions began with £11.6m and ended on £47.8m in 2015; while Minions: The Rise Of Gru opened to £10.4m in 2022, ending on £47m and aided by a social media frenzy that saw youngsters going to see the film in large groups, all wearing smart suits.
These figures bode well for Universal, which will look to pass the £40m mark across the run and end in the region of the recent films. Another yardstick will be Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out 2, which opened to £11.3m and became the highest-grossing film of the year last weekend with £40.1m from four weekends.
Despicable Me 4 sees supervillain Gru and his family forced to relocate to a safehouse when an old rival of Gru seeks revenge with his girlfriend. Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Will Ferrell, Joey King, Sofia Vergara, Stephen Colbert, Miranda Cosgrove, Steve Coogan and Minions creator Pierre Coffin are amongst the voice cast.
Black Bear is opening Oz Perkins’ buzzy US horror Longlegs in 475 cinemas. The film debuted at Beyond Fest in the US at the end of May, since when it has built significant word-of-mouth on social media. It centres on an FBI agent who uncovers a series of occult clues while in pursuit of a serial killer.
Nicolas Cage stars alongside genre maven Maika Monroe, who broke through with It Follows (£1.2m total) and has credits including The Guest (£850,356) and Independence Day: Resurgence (£12.1m).
Actor-turned filmmaker Perkins has previously directed films including 2020 fantasy-horror Gretel And Hansel, and 2015 debut The Blackcoat’s Daughter.
Moon time
In a weekend of diverse releases, Sony is opening Greg Berlanti’s romantic comedy Fly Me To The Moon starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum. It follows the relationship between a marketing specialist and a NASA director during the 1960s space race, and is written by Rose Gilroy.
US director Berlanti made his name on TV series including Dawson’s Creek, Brothers & Sisters and Riverdale. His first feature as director was The Broken Hearts Club (£64,860) in 2001, followed by Life As We Know It (£3.5m) in 2010 and Love, Simon (£3.7m) in 2018.
Altitude is opening horror In A Violent Nature in 220 sites. A Sundance 2024 premiere, the film follows a resurrected corpse hellbent on retrieving a locket stolen from it during a fire. The film has been on the US festival tour throughout the first half of the year, at Overlook, Milwaukee and PFF SpringFest.
Warner Bros is starting Daniela Volker’s documentary The Commandant’s Shadow in 133 cinemas, following Hans Jurgen Hoss, son of Auschwitz concentration camp commandant Rudolf Hoss. Hans confronts his father’s involvement in the murder of over one million Jews during the Holocaust.
Curzon has Jason Yu’s Korean comedy-horror Sleep, which premiered in Critics’ Week a Cannes 2023 before going on to Toronto, Philadelphia, Stockholm and Brussels film festivals. The film follows a young, expectant wife who must figure out how to stop her husband’s nightmarish sleepwalking habits before he harms himself or his family.
Limited releases include Brian Eno documentary Eno through Brain One Ltd; a re-release of David Schickele’s Bushman in eight sites through Other Parties, with eight to follow the next week; Himalayas-set documentary Agent Of Happiness, another Sundance participant, through Dogwoof; and tree documentary Heart Of An Oak, a Berlinale 2022 entry, through Icon.
Despicable Me 4 should overhaul animation competitor Inside Out 2 after four weeks in first place for the latter; while other strong holdovers include Paramount’s A Quiet Place: Day One and Sony’s Bad Boys: Ride Or Die.
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