SPOILER ALERT: This story contains major spoilers for “Minions and Monsters” out now in movie theaters.
“Minions and Monsters” writer, director and voice actor Pierre Coffin is a huge fan of classic cinema, so it’s fitting that the latest installment of the franchise pays tribute to old Hollywood. This time around, two new characters, Henry and James, lead the story.
Set against a 1920s backdrop, the film shows how the Minions accidentally stumble upon a movie set and conquer Hollywood. Along the way, they discover sound, and in the process of filmmaking, they unleash monsters into the world. And, in true Minions style, it’s utter comedic chaos.
The film gave Coffin, who makes his solo directing debut, a chance to pay the ultimate homage to the classics and to litter the film with references that range from “Citizen Kane” to “Babylon,” the iconic Universal monster movies, “The Blob” and more.
Here, Coffin breaks down his favorite Easter eggs and how he pulled them off.
The evolution of the Universal logo and Illumination Entertainment’s logo
Illumination and Universal Pictures
Before co-writer Brian Lynch joined the project, Coffin had started jotting down ideas, and one of the first things he wrote down was the Universal Pictures logo. Coffin explains, “On the second draft, I thought, ‘Oh, we’re going back in time.’”
As he envisioned the opening credits, Coffin thought about incorporating the studio’s old logos and finding an elegant way to do it. “I typed in Universal logos across time, and I got the site where all the logos were,” he explains. With that, he created a version that starts with the modern-day Universal logo and goes back to the very first one.
In keeping with that style, Coffin also incorporated an Illumination logo that harkens back to the Merrie Melodies animated logo. “I had my elegant way into the movie, where it was going to be about the past. It also permitted composer John Powell to install all the themes that he was going to be putting into the movies,” Coffin adds.
The Hollywood Museum
With the film set largely in the past, Coffin wanted to break expectations and hold off on exposing the Minions to audiences too early. The movie opens with a modern-day museum tour guide, Olivia (voiced by Allison Janney), who walks guests through exhibits celebrating cinema history.
“The museum moment was to find all the things audiences loved about movies,” Coffin says.
Eagle-eyed viewers will spot nods and references to “The Matrix,” “E.T: The Extra Terrestrial,” and even a gag featuring “Star Wars” creator George Lucas. But there was one nod Coffin was particularly eager to include.
“The most important thing I wanted in there is the plane from ‘Airplane.’” He says, “When you think of a movie classic, you think of ’12 Angry Men’ or ‘Citizen Kane.’ You think of old black-and-white movies, but you don’t think about comedy, and for me, ‘Airplane’ was a good example of a movie that also pays tribute to everything that those slapstick guys did in the 1920s.” He goes on to say, “That movie is just a masterpiece in actually doing that.”
Other nods include “The Blues Brothers” and “Back to the Future.”
Photo credit: Illumination & Uni
George Lucas’ Cameo
Coffin credits co-writer Brian Lynch with coming up with the idea of including a statue behind glass in the museum. Coffin recalls, “We knew that this guy needed to be of a certain importance and still alive. We had a meeting where names were thrown out, and then Chris Meledandri (Illumination’s CEO) said ‘How about George Lucas?’”
The question was how they would convince Lucas to say yes, especially since he had retired. But Meledandri offered to send a text message. Coffin says, “The reply didn’t come right away, but Chris said, ‘George says yes, and he’s coming to Paris in two weeks. You should record him.” Two weeks later, Lucas arrived at a small recording studio in Paris, where he stayed for half an hour to record his cameo.
A nod to Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Charlie Chaplin
Once the Minions stumble into Hollywood, the film pays homage to early slapstick cinema, recreating scenes made famous by Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd. For Coffin, the idea was that the Minions would flow through the scenes. “It was to give a nod to those guys, but also to suggest that those guys weren’t necessarily the inventors of these moments — that it was actually happy accidents provoked by the Minions that made those moments iconic,” Coffin explains.
Coffin adds, “It’s a retelling of history. There are moments where we’re not true to history. The idea was not to make a historical movie. The invention of sound did not come at that period; it came a couple of years later.” Coffin declares, “It’s not my movie; it’s a Minions movie, literally.”
Play it again, Sam
The Bright Brothers voiced by Jeff Bridges
Photo credit: Illumination & Uni
Jeff Bridges voices Frank and Elwood, the Bright Brothers, who run the studio. Christoph Waltz voices Max, the film director who hires the Minions to act in his films during the 1920s. Coffin points out that Max knows every Minion by name and has a soft spot for them. “Max is doing his job, the best he can, and he’s really affectionate when it comes to the Minions. It shows the humanity of a character,” Coffin explains.
In one scene, while watching dailies, the Bright Brothers ask Sam, the piano player, to “play it again,” a nod to the famous “Casablanca” quote. “The music is excellent,” Coffin says. “It throws me back to that scene where Sam plays that music to Ingrid Bergman.”
Minions Names
When the Minions are fired from the studio and leave Bright Brothers, Max calls out their names. But they’re not just any names — they’re the names of famous directors.
“That was an ad-lib from Christoph Waltz,” Coffin reveals. “I had written regular Minion names, like Tim and John, and he said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if they were directors?’”
According to Coffin, Waltz recorded a long list of names, including Federico (Fellini) and Erich (von Stroheim). “Some of them are obscure. I’m not sure if anyone knows Fellini anymore, but it was a nice nod, and I kept the ones I really liked.”
Coffin adds, “I often get asked if kids won’t get the reference, and I say, ‘Well, that’s okay. The idea isn’t about kids recognizing directors. The idea is that Max knows all the Minions by name.’”
The invention of sound
Coffin knew that mixing the idea of the invention of sound with the Minions would inevitably lead to chaos. “Something was going to go wrong, but I didn’t know exactly what it would be,” Coffin admits.
Whatever it was, they would fail.
In the sequence, Coffin pays homage to film noir movie with nods to “The Big Sleep” and “The Maltese Falcon.”
“The war movie references are a little less specific — they’re based on all the war films I saw as a kid. They were often badly done, with everything staged, and you’d see someone die in a way that felt false,” Coffin explains.
For the third part of the sequence, Coffin says he always knew he wanted to reference “Citizen Kane.” “We boiled it down to three genres. We needed some sort of escalation that led us to ‘Citizen Kane.’ The idea was to establish that there were cue cards the Minions weren’t reading, and that’s how they screw up sound.”
He says, “The ‘Citizen Kane’ one was just stupid at this moment. It speaks to the children because they see a guy dying, and the guy drops his thing and says, ‘Oh, poop.’ It’s always funny. For the adults, the go, ‘What the hell, it’s Rosebud.’ We go from rosebud to poop.”
“The Blob”
Coffin’s tribute to “The Blob”
Photo credit: Illumination & Uni
Coffin says his love of movies started as a kid, watching special effects unfold onscreen. “Even if they were badly done, I was still in awe of them.”
One film that stayed with him was the 1958 film, “The Blob.” “I remember watching that movie, and I was terrified,” he says. Coffin revisited the film before making “Minions and Monsters.” “That little lump doesn’t even move, and I could see someone poking it outside of frame. It’s supposed to be scary, but then it becomes really ridiculous, and so I just wanted to pay a nod to it.” He adds, “I wanted to see a good blob being done.”
Photo credit: Illumination & Uni
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