Despicable Me 4 Director On Gru's Future & The Film's "Deadpool & Wolverine" Moment

Where does Steve Carell's Gru go from here?

That's the big question as the Despicable Me franchise closes in on its 15-year anniversary next summer. With six films (two of them prequels), over $5 billion at the global box office, a plethora of shorts, and an entire theme park section having spawned from the IP, Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment have no plans to retire the animated series anytime soon.

RELATED: Universal Pictures & Illumination Go Bananas for Third Minions Film Set for Summer 2027

A third Minions movie is already in the works, of course, but a big question mark looms over the main storyline centered around the evil genius turned gentle suburbanite. To learn what may lie in store for Gru & Co. moving forward, NBC Insider caught up with Despicable Me 4 director Chris Renaud over Zoom. Check out our conversation below!

Despicable Me 4 Director Talks Mega Minions, Gru's Future & More

Since we have such limited time, I’m gonna jump right to the end of the movie. The whole idea of Gru reuniting with all the villains we’ve met since the first movie feels like a send-off moment. Did you intend for it to be a bookend in case the story ends here? 

Chris Renaud: That was part of my personal rationale. What the future holds, as far where we take Gru and all that, is unknown at this point. But I felt like it was a great opportunity, having worked with these characters for over 15 years now, to have it as a crossover/reunion-type event. If you think of other films that are out there, specifically Deadpool & Wolverine, it’s something the audience has a strong, positive reaction to. It’s just great to see all these things that you’ve enjoyed over the years come together. So again, what the future holds, I don’t know, but it felt like a great moment, given the nature of the scene, to get everybody together. 

I feel like you’ve only just begun to scratch the surface with the potential of the Mega Minions. Where would you like to see them go in future?

I don’t know, we could do shorts [with them]. To be honest, the tricky part about superhero material, is that there’s so much of it out there. Not even just the MCU, but DC and standalone things that we’ve seen over the years. And even a lot of darkly comedic material like The Boys. So, where do you go with it? When we were developing the Mega Minions, it was a bit of a challenge to think about how… Ultimately, we went through the lens of the Minions themselves. Their nature and the specifics of them as characters is what got us to where we landed as far as the comedy and how to depict their superpowers. While they’re intriguing and fun, making a feature [with them] is trickier. Just given my experience of developing them for the small moments they have in this movie, I think it’s a bit tricker than it may appear. But they’re out there now and we’ll see what happens.

Gru (Steve Carell) appears in Despicable Me 4 (2024). Photo: Illumination & Universal Pictures

You’ve got a little Anchorman reunion going on with Will Ferrell voicing the villain in this movie. Was he always at the top of your wishlist for the role of Maxime?

He was at the top of my wishlist, for sure. I always wanted to work with Will. I’ve been a big admirer of his since his Saturday Night Live days. And so, that really was the number one pick from day one and we were very fortunate that he agreed to sign on. Steve Carell was very excited — not just about Will, but also about Stephen Colbert coming on as the neighbor, Perry Prescott. A lot of his comedy partners in either films or TV shows' past came together to join him for Despicable Me 4.

For the most part, animation dialogue is recorded separately, but I'm curious if Steve and Will got to share the booth at any point during production?

We talked about that with these two, for sure. There’s a scene towards the end of the film where it’s just the two of them talking to each other and that was the one we were specifically targeting. But unfortunately, with schedules and production deadlines, we were never able to make it work out. That said, I think it’s pretty seamless. I think the editor’s done a great job and, of course, the actors have done amazing performances along with the animators. You’d have no idea they weren’t in the same room together, talking to directly to each other.

Talk to me about Maxime’s fascination with cockroaches. It gave me some serious Men in Black vibes…

[laughs] From a narrative point-of-view, we needed a villain that was powerful and scary enough to force Gru and his family to leave their home. Obviously, we know the archetypes of Spider-Man and Ant-Man, who have those powers, but they still look human. What we liked about this almost Jekyll and Hyde thing, was that it’s kind of a terrible idea, and that’s sort of a hallmark of the Despicable Me villains. They’re all slightly incompetent, which gives them this built-in comedic aspect. Those two things were what helped us land on Maxime’s transformation.

Mega Minions (Pierre Coffin) in Despicable Me 4 (2024). Photo: Illumination & Universal Pictures

We’ve seen Gru go from callous evil mastermind to loving family man. Now he’s got a newborn baby. What emotional milestone would you like to see him tackle next?

I think there’s a lot of things we could do. It may be interesting to see him in the future. One of the fun things about Gru, and why the audience has stuck around [for these movies], is we’ve seen him go through these different aspects of life and he changes. Much like most people do, particularly when they have a family. So, it would be interesting to think of, “What’s the next change?” Whether it’s being an empty nester... Who knows? But that’s the fun part of the character, there’s a relatability the audience enjoys seeing.

How has the process of making a Despicable Me movie changed since the franchise first began over a decade ago?

In some ways, its easier and in some ways it’s harder. The ways it’s easier are technical. When we were making the first Despicable Me, we had a lot of challenges technically. We were starting with a new pipeline and looking to make the film at a certain budget, but also [have it] be competitive with the high-end studios that were operating at the time. It was also the first time we were dealing with stereoscopic 3D technology. So, a lot of technical challenges, which made things tough.

I would say when you get into the fourth film — or fifth, if you count Rise of Gru — the tricky part becomes trying to find fresh ideas while keeping it something that the audience knows and enjoys. It’s not just the films we have to think about, it’s also the dozens of Minions shorts that we’ve done. It’s not to say that every idea has to be completely unique and new, but you definitely don’t want to be feeling that you’re doing the same thing over and over again because the audience will certainly get wise to that. I think that’s probably the big challenge because in the first Despicable Me, you have a very clean idea of a curmudgeon who adopts three little girls and they soften his heart. It’s a very simple, classic storyline. And then each one after that, [the story and world get more complicated]. He finds a wife and a mom [for the girls], and then he meets a brother. The ideas you're introducing start getting more complicated to some degree and so, how do you keep that all working and balance the different aspects of the story?

Catch Despicable Me 4 on Peacock starting on Oct. 31, 2024.