Universal Studios has been having a historically good year at the box office, and their film Minions has just hit a major milestone.
According to Box Office Mojo, Minions has officially passed $1 billion worldwide. That's all on a budget of just $74 million, and even without the lead character, it has become a lot more successful than the first two Despicable Me movies, which took in $543 million and $970 million respectively. Minions is now the third highest grossing animated film of all time behind Frozen and Toy Story 3.
This all adds up to an incredible year for Universal Studios, which has become the first studio in history to have three films cross $1 billion in one year. Their other two movies are Jurassic World, the number one film of the year which has taken home $1.6 billion, and Furious 7, which grossed $1.5 billion. Between just those three movies, Universal has made over $4 billion this year. And that's not even factoring in Pitch Perfect 2, Fifty Shades of Grey and Straight Outta Compton.
The only studio to come close to Universal this year is Disney, whose most successful 2015 movies have been Avengers: Age of Ultron, Inside Out, and Cinderella. Disney probably could have come a lot closer to Universal had Tomorrowland and Ant-Man been the successes the studio was aiming for, but both films fell a bit short of expectations.
Besides everyone at Universal getting very rich, this all means that we can surely expect a lot more sequels to Minions, Jurassic Park and The Fast and the Furious. However, given that Disney is coming out with Star Wars: The Force Awakens on December 18, don't expect Universal's domination to last much longer.
image of Sandra Bullock courtesy of Peter West/ACE/INFphoto.com