Despicable Me - about the film makers

Release Date: 9 July 2010

Directors:

Pierre Coffin - A new director, he animated on We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story (1993).

Chris Renaud - He has a little more experience. He worked on "Bear in the Big Blue House" (1997), "The Book of Pooh" (2001), Robots (2005), "It's a Big Big World" (2006), Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006), Horton Hears a Who! (2008), and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009). He also wrote and directed No Time for Nuts (2006). He's scheduled to co-direct The Lorax, which is an animated follow-up of sorts of Horton (although Lorax will be done by Universal and not Fox).

Essentially, Chris couldn't get much directing opportunities at Fox (where he worked on Robots, Ice Age 2, Horton, and Ice Age 3), but Universal gave him his first feature film to direct (Despicable Me), and he's already got a second one lined up (Lorax).



Universal Pictures has been trying to join Pixar, Disney, DreamWorks, and Fox in the animated film battle, but they haven't had any hits yet (Curious George, Pirates Who Don't Do Anything, The Tale of Despereaux, and Coraline). Plus they have new attempts coming (Dispicable Me, Lorax, Flanimals). Although I was rooting for Despereaux, it failed to hit the right cords. So now I'm rooting for Despicable Me.

For Despicable Me they seem to have the formula down that DreamWorks and Fox uses (get stars to be funny; get stars to promote film). In fact, the proof is that it seems that DreamWorks is copying them with Megamind, a version of this same story (the bad guy is the actual hero), but Will Ferrell and Brad Pitt play the main characters instead of Steve Carell and Jason Segel.

Plus add Tina Fey and Jonah Hill, as well as the director of Madagascar 1 and 2, and it seems that Megamind might have more star power. However, I think the story of Despicable Me (villain becomes father) is far better than Megamind (villain kills hero and doesn't know what to do).

So, yeah, I'm rooting for Despicable Me. I also like the art and animation style better (and that the hero is more lame and disgusting than the villain is pretty funny). Go underdogs!

Enjoy!