So it turns out, world domination does require a lot of Minions. Of course, any supervillain could have told you that, which is why you shouldn’t be too shocked to learn Universal and Illumination Entertainment’s Despicable Me movies, combined with their Minions spinoff, are now the highest-grossing animated franchise of all time. According to Deadline, the success of this summer’s Despicable Me 3, released in the U.S. on June 30, helped edge out the five films starring the previous record-holder, a massively successful, extremely grumpy orge by the name of Shrek. The three Despicable Me films and 2015’s Minions have, as of this weekend, raked in $3.528 billion dollars, a total that will only continue to climb with the 2020 release of Minions 2. Not as impressive as shrinking and stealing the moon, but hey, give them a few more sequels and they’ll have more than enough money to do that too.
