With “Despicable Me 4,” director Chris Renaud finally got to embrace a superhero vibe through the creation of the yellow Mega Minions . They are rushed into service, thanks to a super-serum, after Gru (Steve Carrell) and his expanded family are forced into hiding when threatened by vengeful childhood rival Maxime Le Mal (Will Ferrell): a supervillain who’s harnessed the power of cockroaches. “A long-held goal of mine was to have a chance to play with those kinds of [superhero] archetypes from Marvel and DC comics,” Renaud told IndieWire.
“And it can be a challenge to take the Minions and come up with new configurations and new ideas visually, as well as new animation [from Illumination ]. In ‘DM2,’ they were the subject of a plot to make them evil; in ‘DM3,’ they were in jail. “So in ‘DM4,’ they’re in this witness protection town, and we started with them as just AVL [Anti-Villain League] agents,” Renaud continued.
“But then it just didn’t feel like it was going far enough because we’ve seen Minions in suits, and we’ve seen them test weapons, and so that was how the Mega Minion idea grew out of that with giving them superpowers. But with limited screen time, the director chose to give the Mega Minions very simple superpowers in an effort to help take down the formidable Maxime: Dave grows and has super strength; Jerry turns into a spherical, rock-like structure that can chomp through tough material; Tim becomes super stretchy; Mel develop.