Minions & Monsters Opens in Theaters with 1920s Hollywood Setting

Minions & Monsters opened in theaters Wednesday, setting its characters in 1920s Los Angeles where a Minion named James tries to direct a monster movie. The story follows a different tribe of Minions who arrive in Hollywood and enter the studio system. Pierre Coffin, who created the Minions and voices them, wrote the script and co-directed the film.

Coffin said he received full script control after producer Chris Meledandri proposed the initial concept in 2022. Meledandri, founder and CEO of Illumination, agreed to let Coffin lead the writing without standard studio oversight. Coffin, 59, said the 1920s period appealed because it marked when cinema became an industry.

He used black-and-white photographs and later films such as Singin' in the Rain to design the settings.

The movie opens with a black-and-white sequence referencing Eadweard Muybridge's 1878 The Horse in Motion, the Lumière Brothers' 1895 Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory, and Georges Méliès' 1902 A Trip to the Moon. Later scenes recreate Edwin S. Porter's 1903 The Great Train Robbery.

Brief animated appearances include Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd. Coffin also included a scene with George Lucas, who recorded his lines in Paris after being contacted by Meledandri. The film features statues of Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Bruce Lee, and other figures in a museum exhibit sequence.

The Minions lose acting jobs when sound films arrive because their voices cannot deliver dialogue, a plot point Coffin said he handled differently from earlier movies on the same theme.