Universal Studios Hollywood is a film studio and theme park in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles County, California. About 70% of the studio lies within the unincorporated county island known as Universal City while the rest lies within the city limits of Los Angeles, California. It is one of the oldest and most famous Hollywood film studios still in use. Its official marketing headline is "The Entertainment Capital of LA". It was initially created to offer tours of the real Universal Studios sets and is the first of many full-fledged Universal Studios Theme Parks located across the world.
Despicable Me is a 2010 American animated comedy film produced by Illumination Entertainment and distributed by Universal Pictures. The first feature film from Illumination Entertainment, it was directed by Chris Renaud and Pierre Coffin and produced by Chris Meledandri, Janet Healy, and John Cohen, from a screenplay by Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio, which was in turn based on an original story "Evil Me" by Sergio Pablos. Despicable Me stars the voices of Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Miranda Cosgrove, Kristen Wiig, Will Arnett, and Julie Andrews. The film follows Gru, a longtime supervillain who adopts three orphan girls to use as pawns in a villainous scheme but reluctantly develops an emotional attachment to them.
Illumination, formerly known as Illumination Entertainment, is an American animation studio founded by Chris Meledandri in 2007 and is a division of Universal Studios, a division of Comcast through its wholly owned subsidiary NBCUniversal; Meledandri produces the films, while Universal finances and distributes them. The studio is best known for creating the Despicable Me, The Secret Life of Pets, and Sing franchises, as well as the adaptations of Dr. Seuss' books The Lorax and How the Grinch Stole Christmas!; and Nintendo video games, starting with The Super Mario Bros. Movie. The Minions, characters from the Despicable Me series, are the mascots of the studio.
The decade of the 2010s in film involved many significant developments in the motion picture industry as Disney towered all over its competitors. The studio's titles occupy exactly half of the top 50 highest-grossing movies at the worldwide box office of these ten years with solely one of those entries not reaching a billion dollars and the only three features on the entire list to cross the $2 billion mark, while Universal and Warner Bros. share the distant second place at eight titles each. Furthermore, non-Disney films managed to become the top-grosser of a year merely twice during the decade. This domination culminated in the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney.
Despicable Me 2 is a 2013 American animated comedy film produced by Illumination Entertainment and distributed by Universal Pictures. The sequel to Despicable Me (2010), it was directed by Chris Renaud and Pierre Coffin, produced by Chris Meledandri and Janet Healy, and written by the writing team of Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio. It stars the voices of Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Benjamin Bratt, Miranda Cosgrove, Russell Brand, and Ken Jeong. The film follows retired supervillain Gru as he is recruited by secret agent Lucy Wilde to investigate the theft of a powerful mutagen by El Macho, a supervillain who seeks to achieve world domination.
Despicable Me is an American media franchise created by Sergio Pablos and Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio. It centers on a former supervillain turned secret agent named Gru and his yellow-colored Minions. The franchise is produced by Illumination and distributed by its parent company Universal Pictures.
Minions is a 2015 American animated comedy film produced by Illumination Entertainment and distributed by Universal Pictures. The film is a prequel to Despicable Me (2010) and the third installment overall in the film series of the same name. Directed by Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda, produced by Chris Meledandri and Janet Healy, and written by Brian Lynch, Minions stars the voices of Coffin as the Minions, Sandra Bullock, Jon Hamm, Michael Keaton, Allison Janney, Steve Coogan, Jennifer Saunders, and Geoffrey Rush as the narrator. In the film, the Minions search for their replaceable evil master after accidentally killing all of those in history.
Despicable Me 3 is a 2017 American animated comedy film produced by Illumination and distributed by Universal Pictures. It is the sequel to Despicable Me 2 (2013), and the third main and fourth overall installment in the Despicable Me franchise. It was directed by Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda, co-directed by production and character designer Eric Guillon, and produced by Chris Meledandri and Janet Healy, from a screenplay by the writing team of Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio. It stars the voices of Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Trey Parker, Coffin, Miranda Cosgrove, Steve Coogan, Jenny Slate, Dana Gaier, Nev Scharrel, and Julie Andrews. In the film, Gru teams up with his long-lost twin brother Dru to stop Balthazar Bratt, a former child actor of the 1980s, from destroying Hollywood after his show was canceled years ago.
2017 in film is an overview of events, including the highest-grossing films, award ceremonies, festivals, a list of films released, and notable deaths.
Illumination Studios Paris is a French animated feature production company owned by Illumination, a division of Universal Pictures. Based in Paris, France, the company was created in 2011 as part of Universal's purchase deal of the animation arm of French animation and VFX company Mac Guff. It is responsible for the animation on Illumination's feature-length animated films and associated short films, most notably the Despicable Me franchise.
The Secret Life of Pets is a 2016 American animated comedy film produced by Illumination Entertainment and distributed by Universal Pictures. It was directed by Chris Renaud, co-directed by Yarrow Cheney, and produced by Chris Meledandri and Janet Healy, from a screenplay written by Brian Lynch and the writing team of Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio. The film stars the voices of Louis C.K., Eric Stonestreet, Jenny Slate, Kevin Hart, Ellie Kemper, Lake Bell, Dana Carvey, Hannibal Buress, Bobby Moynihan, Steve Coogan, and Albert Brooks.
Warner Bros. Pictures Animation (WBPA), formerly known as Warner Animation Group (WAG), is an American animation studio that serves as the feature film label of Warner Bros.' theatrical film production and distribution division, Warner Bros. Pictures. Established on January 7, 2013, by Jeff Robinov, the studio is the successor to the dissolved 2D traditional hand-drawn animation studio Warner Bros. Feature Animation, which shut down in 2004, and is also a sister to the regular Warner Bros. Animation studio.
The Secret Life of Pets 2 is a 2019 American animated comedy film produced by Illumination and distributed by Universal Pictures. It is the sequel to the 2016 film The Secret Life of Pets, and the second feature film in the franchise of the same name. It was directed by Chris Renaud, co-directed by Jonathan del Val, produced by Chris Meledandri and Janet Healy, and written by Brian Lynch. The film features the voices of Patton Oswalt, Eric Stonestreet, Jenny Slate, Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish, Lake Bell, Nick Kroll, Dana Carvey, Ellie Kemper, Renaud, Hannibal Buress, Bobby Moynihan, and Harrison Ford.
Yarrow Cheney is an American artist, film director, designer, author, illustrator, and animator. He is best known for his works as a production designer in Despicable Me 2 (2013), The Lorax (2012), and Despicable Me (2010) for which he received Primetime Emmy and Annie Awards nominations.
Minions: The Rise of Gru, also known as Minions 2, is a 2022 American animated comedy film produced by Illumination and distributed by Universal Pictures. It is the sequel to Minions (2015), a prequel to Despicable Me (2010), and the fifth entry overall in the Despicable Me franchise. The film was directed by Kyle Balda, co-directed by Brad Ableson and Jonathan del Val, and produced by Chris Meledandri, Janet Healy and Chris Renaud, from a screenplay written by Matthew Fogel, and a story by Fogel and Brian Lynch. It features Steve Carell reprising his role as Gru and Pierre Coffin as the Minions, along with Russell Brand and Julie Andrews reprising their respective roles as Dr. Nefario and Gru's mother. New cast members include Taraji P. Henson, Michelle Yeoh, and Alan Arkin. Additionally, Will Arnett and Steve Coogan reprise their roles as Mr. Perkins and Silas Ramsbottom. In the film, an eleven-year-old Gru plans to become a supervillain with the help of his Minions, which leads to a showdown with a malevolent team, the Vicious 6.
