Despicable Me 4

Despicable Me 4 is a 2024 American animated comedy film produced by Universal Pictures and Illumination, and distributed by Universal. It is the sequel to Despicable Me 3 (2017), the fourth main installment, and the sixth overall installment in the Despicable Me franchise. The film was directed by Chris Renaud, co-directed by Patrick Delage (in his feature directorial debut), produced by Chris Meledandri and Brett Hoffman, and written by Mike White and Ken Daurio. It stars the voices of Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Pierre Coffin, Joey King, Miranda Cosgrove, Steve Coogan, Sofía Vergara, Stephen Colbert, Renaud, Madison Polan, Dana Gaier, Chloe Fineman, and Will Ferrell. The film sees reformed supervillain and secret agent Gru (Carell) relocate his family to a safe house when his old rival Maxime Le Mal (Ferrell) seeks revenge. Subplots deal with Gru's family adjusting to their new lives, teenage neighbor Poppy Prescott (King) trying to follow in Gru's villainous footsteps, and a group of Gru's Minions (Coffin) becoming superheroes.
Development on a fourth main Despicable Me film began in September 2017. It was officially confirmed in February 2022, with Renaud, Delage, and White attached as director, co-director, and writer, respectively. Production was underway by June 2022. Most of the main voice cast was announced in January 2024, with Hoffman and Daurio revealed as co-producer and co-writer, respectively. Heitor Pereira and Pharrell Williams returned from previous installments to compose the score and write original songs and themes, respectively.
Despicable Me 4 premiered at the Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City on June 9, 2024, and was theatrically released in the United States on July 3. The film received mixed reviews and has grossed $807 million worldwide, becoming a box-office success and making it the third-highest-grossing film of 2024.
==Plot==
Anti-Villain League (AVL) agent Gru attends a reunion at his alma mater, Lycée Pas Bon. There, he reunites with his rival Maxime Le Mal, who harbors a grudge towards Gru for stealing his talent show act when they were in school. Maxime reveals he has enhanced himself with cockroach parts to make himself over-powered and so can conquer the world, but Gru arrests him with the help of the AVL. Maxime escapes from the AVL prison with the help of his girlfriend Valentina. He reveals an invention that turns people into human-roach hybrids, which he plans to specifically use on Gru's infant son Gru Jr.
Silas Ramsbottom comes out of retirement and visits the Gru household to inform them of Maxime's escape; and that the AVL will have to relocate them to a house in another town named Mayflower until Maxime is recaptured. Assuming new names and identities as part of a witness protection program, Gru becomes Chet, a solar panel salesman. Lucy is given the name Blanche and a career as a hairdresser.Most of the Minions are taken in by the AVL. Silas selects five of them to be augmented with powers under an initiative called the Mega Minions, but the initiative is canceled after the group causes collateral damage in a city.
In their new well-off residential town, Gru and his family meet their neighbors, the Prescotts. Their teenage daughter, Poppy, an aspiring villainess, recognizes Gru from his former career as a villain. She threatens to blow Gru's cover unless he helps her pull off a heist to steal Lycée Pas Bon's mascot, a honey badger named Lenny, so she can enroll there. The pair, with the help of two Minions and Gru Jr., successfully steal Lenny and escape in a flying car. But the school's elderly principal, Übelschlecht, identifies Gru from security cam footage and contacts Maxime to inform him of Gru's whereabouts, using a tracker in Lenny's collar.
The next day, Gru and Lucy are away at the local country club with Poppy's parents Perry and Patsy, while Poppy and Lenny are at the safe house with daughters Margo, Edith and Agnes. Poppy notices Übelschlecht visiting, and quickly leaves with Lenny, leaving Übelschlecht to interrogate the daughters about Gru's whereabouts. Gru and Lucy rush home after being called by Margo and fight Übelschlecht. Lucy also contacts the AVL, who in turn summon the Mega Minions to stop Maxime. In the chaos, however, Gru Jr. leaves the house and is spotted by Maxime and Valentina, who kidnap him and take him into their ship. Gru decides to save his son while Lucy and the girls stay behind to handle Ubelschlecht.
Poppy uses the flying car to help Gru get onto the ship. Valentina tries to stop them, but she is knocked off by the roof. The ship crashes into a building under construction, where Maxime reveals he has transformed and brainwashed Gru Jr. into a roach hybrid, much to Gru’s horror, and Maxime uses Gru Jr. to fight him off. Gru is knocked out, but his encouraging words to his son break Gru Jr. from his state, and attacks Maxime instead. Maxime falls off the building and is squashed by the Mega Minions with the aid of animals and insects who have followed them. The AVL and Silas arrive in turn to arrest Maxime and Valentina.
Reunited with Lucy and the girls, Gru thanks Poppy for her help before she adopts Lenny as her new pet. Gru and his family return home, where Dr. Nefario reverses Gru Jr.'s transformation. Gru visits Maxime in an AVL prison to settle their differences. To show their reconciliation, the pair performs "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" for the prisoners, which include a lot of Gru's past adversaries.
==Cast==
==Music==
In March 2024, Heitor Pereira was announced to be composing the film's score, returning from the previous installments. Pharrell Williams was also confirmed to be returning to co-compose the score with Pereira as well as to write new songs. The original soundtrack was released on June 27, 2024, by Back Lot Music.
==Marketing==
The first trailer for the film was released on January 28, 2024, during the 2023–24 NFL playoff championship games. The trailer features the songs "Sweet Child O' Mine" by Guns N' Roses and "Maneater" by Hall & Oates, as well as in television showings, "Through the Fire and Flames" by DragonForce. CBR reported that the trailer showcased "the struggles of welcoming in a new member of the Gru family" and included the debut of Will Ferrell's Maxime Le Mal. Screen Rants Brennan Klein observed that Gru's tumultuous relationship with his son, Gru Jr., contrasted with the good relationship with his adopted daughters. An additional trailer was revealed on February 11 during Super Bowl LVIII, being narrated by Jon Hamm, who previously voiced Herb Overkill in the 2015 spin-off film Minions, and featuring cameos by Ferrell and Steve Carell. Ryan Gajewski of The Hollywood Reporter said the trailer appeared to "tout the benefits of modern technology but feature strange images supposedly generated by AI," enjoying the Renaissance-era-inspired poses of Ferrell and Carell in the trailer. On April 10, at CinemaCon, Universal displayed a clip of Gru and Poppy trying to steal a honey badger. Brennan Kline of Screen Rant appreciated that the clip solidified the "important element" of Gru's domestic family man status in the sequel.
The second trailer was released on May 7, 2024. Writing for TheWrap, Drew Taylor called the trailer "Minions-heavy" and pointed out one of Pharrell Williams' new original songs featured in the trailer. Collider noted the "devastating consequences" of enlisting a small group of Minion volunteers for an experiment that gave them superpowers. Journalist Diego Peralta pointed out a sequence in which one of the super-powered minions destroys a part of their base with laser vision and said that villains Maxime and Valentina "are more dangerous than any threat Gru has faced before."
On June 8, 2024, Illumination released a parody teaser for the film in which Steve Carell announces the Megaverse, a parody of shared universes such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC Extended Universe, by claiming that Illumination would release 100 years' worth of films, television series, and stage productions starring the Mega Minions. Illumination also published a website for the Megaverse. Some of the fake productions noted on the website include Mega Minions: The Tax Write-Off and an untitled Mega Minions spin-off series with a "story to be determined based on rigorous market testing and ad hoc decision-making." The stunt was praised for its lampooning of current Hollywood affairs such as the cancellation of Warner Bros. films like Batgirl, Scoob! Holiday Haunt and Coyote vs. Acme and the 2022 DCEU film Black Adam, as well as the mixed reception to Disney's live-action remakes of their classic animated films and many of Marvel's recent productions, such as Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Secret Invasion.
==Release==
===Theatrical ===
Despicable Me 4 premiered at the Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City on June 9, 2024, and made its French premiere at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival on June 13. The film was theatrically released in Australia on June 20, and in the United States on July 3.
=== Home media===
Despicable Me 4 was released by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment on digital download on August 6, 2024. It includes two short films, Game Over and Over and Benny's Birthday.
As part of Universal's long-term deal with Netflix, the film will stream on Peacock for the first four months of the pay-TV window, before moving to Netflix for the next ten and returning to Peacock for the remaining four.
==Reception==
===Box office===
, Despicable Me 4 has grossed $330.1 million in the United States and Canada, and $477.7 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $807.9 million.
In the United States and Canada, Despicable Me 4 was projected to gross $100–125 million from 4,030 theaters in its five-day opening weekend. The film made $27 million on its first day and $20.4 million on its second. It went on to debut to $75 million over the traditional three-day weekend, along with a total five-day gross of $122.6 million, topping the box office. The film made $43.6 million the following weekend, remaining in first place. In its third weekend the film made $24.4 million, finishing in second behind newcomer Twisters, and then made $14.6 million in its fourth weekend, finishing in third behind Twisters and Deadpool & Wolverine.
Internationally the film opened in different countries with different dates, with Australia being the earliest country to release it. The film opened big in multiple countries, and in some it settled franchise records, though in many countries that it opened prior to its US release date, the film opened second behind Inside Out 2, slowing its international climb.
===Critical response===
 Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale (same as the first two films), while those surveyed by PostTrak gave the film an 82% positive score, with 63% saying they would definitely recommend it.
Variety admitted the film is entertaining but found the plot overcrowded with useless characters: "One thing is absolutely certain: We haven't seen the last of these characters, even if we might prefer that a few of them sit out the next sequel—like the Mega Minions, who aren't nearly as cute as they sound." A similar appraisal can be found in Screen Rant or in The Hollywood Reporter, noting, for example, the underdeveloped role of the villain in the midst of the various plot lines: "Running a brisk 95 minutes, Despicable Me 4 doesn't leave enough time for Maxime to enact his plans in a way that packs an emotional punch." ABC News commented: "Should a review of a 'Despicable Me' movie be a thoughtful analysis or just a list of the funny stuff the Minions do in it? As much as I might believe in the value of film criticism, I kind of suspect that even the finest points of assessment would be dismantled about as fast as a Minion can say 'Bello!
==External links== 
*
*
*
*
==References==
Category:Despicable Me (franchise)
Category:Illumination Entertainment animated films
Category:Universal Pictures animated films
Category:2024 films
Category:Films starring Joey King