Minions & Monsters Nearly Revealed How The Characters Were Born, And The Scrapped Idea Sounds Wild
Each Minion movie takes things expands the universe a little bit further, but the newest film, Minions & Monsters, follows entirely new characters. This time we have James, who just wants to make movies and has no interest in villainy. I was a little caught off guard as every minion – as we understood it – has one purpose: to serve a villain. But the more I thought about it, the more fascinated about it I became. So I wasn’t surprised when the newest film Minions & Monsters took top banana during its first weekend at the box office.
But while one of the biggest questions has been answered (namely, how they became Gru’s minions) there are still many burning questions fans are left speculating over. Moviegoers have been desperately wanting to know how the beloved characters are born. Minions & Monsters nearly gave us this answer with a scrapped idea which totally bloews my mind with how wild it sounds. Director (and the voice of every minion) Pierre Coffin sat down with Polygon to spill the tea:
That’s a question we’ve all asked ourselves at a highly creative level. It went really high up and then, ultimately, we thought that we would never answer that question. But we sort of hinted at it when we did the first Minion movie. In the opening credits, they start off as little yellow cells.
While that does hint at an answer to how they evolved, it still leaves a gaping hole in what we know about the minions. And it’s a question that Coffin has yet to get away from, as he has been previously asked about female minions. The director had a blunt answer at the time: “maybe it’s not meant to be.” However, the newest movie is taking a different approach to everything we know about the characters, going back to the 1920s silent film era while expanding the world to include monsters.
Critics have had mind-blowing reactions to the film, with some saying it has “reinvigorated [their] love for [minions].” The film has also been considered an “open-hearted tribute” and “love letter” to making movies. But this hasn’t stopped people from asking Coffin about the minion birds and bees. Turns out the real answer connects to a scrapped idea, which the director explains:
I had another idea for the opening credits of Minions & Monsters. I wanted it to start with the Big Bang and then out of the Big Bang came darkness and multiple little yellow dots. Then we’d follow these yellow dots going from planet to planet and then eventually come to this big blue thing that was kind of separating, so they helped the separation of the moon and what would become the Earth. Then those little yellow dots would come on Earth and populate the Earth. Basically, we were trying to say that the origin of this whole thing actually is the Minions. Then it was deemed slightly off-subject with the type of movie we wanted to make. Maybe we’ll do it for some other Minion movie in the future.
We didn’t get that answer among the 2026 movie releases but that doesn’t mean we won’t ever get a baby minion. After all, folks freaked out over Star Wars‘ baby Yoda aka Grogu. The director also addressed another theory that doesn’t seem to be going away: What were the minions doing during the ’30s and ’40s? While the theory of the minions working for Hitler is a little dark for me, Coffin assures fans that despite there being multiple tribes of minions, they “were not part of the Big History.” Whew.
However, the filmmaker did give a definite answer to one question. When asked if minions can die, his response was a simple “No.” He elaborated, “We tried multiple times, but they seem to come back alive every time for some reason. So I’m guessing they can’t die.” Given everything we’ve seen them go through film after film, I think we could have all guessed that we won’t be attending any minion funerals. This should be a relief to children (and the young-at-heart) everywhere.
If you’re like me and want a little refresher before watching the newest movie in theaters, you can go back to the beginning with a Peacock subscription and watch the first Despicable Me.
