Director of ‘Despicable Me’ Rejects Idea of Live-Action Minion Films

The slapstick-loving Minions from the “Despicable Me” franchise have propelled the series to a staggering $5.4 billion at the worldwide box office, cementing its place as the highest-grossing animated series in history. Chris Renaud, who directed the first two “Despicable Me” films and returned for the fourth sequel, recently spoke to Film Hounds magazine. He was asked about Disney’s trend of turning its animated classics into live-action movies and whether he would ever want to see the Minions take the same route.

“God, I hope not. That’s my answer,” Renaud responded bluntly.

“I mean if there were conversations like that, I haven’t been privy to them,” Renaud continued. “But for me, what defines the world is that it is animated, and it allows us to get away with what we get away with. Like locking a minion in the vending machine or blowing up Gru when he attacks Vector. These are really cartoon ideas, like what would have been in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.”

“I think it just becomes something completely different if you do a live-action version,” he added. “For me personally, it’s not very appealing. But again, who knows what can happen, but that’s my personal feeling about it.”

Pixar’s chief creative officer Pete Docter also recently dismissed the idea of turning Pixar movies into live-action films. Ahead of the release of the record-breaking “Inside Out 2,” Docter talked to Time magazine. He was asked if he’d ever consider developing live-action versions of Pixar’s films after a fan campaign to cast Josh O’Connor in a live-action “Ratatouille” started trending online.

“No, and this might bite me in the butt for saying it, but it sort of bothers me,” Docter told the publication. “I like making movies that are original and unique to themselves. To remake it, it’s not very interesting to me personally.”

Docter added that making a live-action film about a rat “would be tough” because “so much of what we create only works because of the rules of the [animated] world.”

“So if you have a human walk into a house that floats, your mind goes, ‘Wait a second. Hold on. Houses are super heavy. How are balloons lifting the house?’” he continued, referring to 2009’s “Up.” “But if you have a cartoon guy and he stands there in the house, you go, ‘Okay, I’ll buy it.’ The worlds that we’ve built just don’t translate very easily.”

“Inside Out 2” became the highest-grossing animated film of all time this summer, while Renaud’s “Despicable Me 4” put up substantial numbers with $811 million worldwide and counting.

Source: Film Hounds, Time