Once upon a time Gru, by Illumination, opening the Annecy Festival
Annecy has the great pleasure of welcoming, on the occasion of the opening ceremony of the International Animation Film Festival, Minions 2: Once Upon a Time Gru, from the Illumination studio, directed by Kyle Balda, co-directed by Brad Ableson and Jonathan del Val and produced by Illumination Founder and CEO Chris Meledandri, with Janet Healy and Chris Renaud.
This world premiere will be an opportunity for audiences to discover the untold story of how the original Gru, the world’s greatest villain, met his iconic Minions, how he assembled cinema’s most dastardly team and how together they take on the most unstoppable group of villains on the planet: the Vicious 6.
This highly anticipated new chapter in the Despicable Me and Minions franchise will delight young and old alike!
“The Minions franchise is inseparable from Annecy,” recalls the Festival’s artistic delegate, Marcel Jean. As early as 2010, Despicable Me made headlines there and, since then, each film in the series has begun its fruitful career there. The enthusiastic public of Annecy is the best there is to noisily celebrate the return of this happy band which is the emblem of the success of Illumination.
We all want to see the public come back in large numbers and we need lightness and laughter. This is why The Minions 2: Once Upon a Time Gru seemed to us to be the ideal film to open the 2022 edition of the Festival. For the Festival, it is also an opportunity to highlight both French and American know-how. We thank Illumination and Universal Pictures for providing this gift to festival-goers.
The film will be released on July 6, 2022 in France and July 1 in the USA.