Illumination’s Chris Meledandri Talks ‘Minions’, Streaming Vs Theatrical & Facing Fear Of Failure: CineEurope
deadline.comAs part of the opening day here at CineEurope in Barcelona, Illumination founder and CEO Chris Meledandri shed some light on everything from the upcoming Minions: The Rise of Gru to whether we’ll see a same-sex kiss in a future Illumination title and how one long-ago misfire helped inform his career.In a wide-ranging onstage discussion with Deadline’s co-Editor-in-Chief, Mike Fleming, Jr., Meledandri — whose hit-making studio will celebrate its 15th anniversary next year — said it never was an option to send The Rise of Gru to streaming even though it was teed up for release in late June 2020 before Covid forced a delay.With Box Office Flying High, How Do Exhibition & Distribution Maintain The Momentum?: CineEuropeSaid Meledandri: “It was a unified point of view that we were going to wait it out for audiences to come back to the cinema.
None of us knew it would be two years, but none of us blinked. … I know where my heart lies, and it transcends whether or not a decision isn’t the best business decision in the moment.
I think our global culture of cinema is at stake here.”Universal has its own streaming service, Peacock, and Meledandri said he was “thrilled” to be part of building it, “but not at the expense of motion pictures and cinemas.”He continued that Illumination is in a “period of discovery.” The company is “going to have to evolve.
We can have a commitment strategy to movies as a cinema-going experience and we can layer other business on top of that.”In general, is it harder to release movies now than when Illumination began?
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