Between the Despicable Me franchise and Dr. Seuss adaptations, the partnership between Universal Pictures and the animation house Illumination Entertainment has been quite a fruitful one. Last summer the sequel Despicable Me 2 made nearly a billion dollars at the global box office, while The Lorax made nearly $350 million on a tiny $70 million budget. Both companies surely want to continue riding this wave of success together as long as it will take them, and today it's been revealed that Universal and Illumination will at least be working together through the year 2017 on movies like Despicable Me 3.
According to The Wrap, it's been announced today that release dates have been set for both Despicable Me 3 as well as a new CGI-animated adaptation of How The Grinch Stole Christmas. Despicable Me 3, like the series' previous titles, will be coming out during the summer - set for the June 30, 2017 weekend - while the latter will be sneaking into the Thanksgiving season on November 17, 2017.
These are long term plans, obviously, but Universal and Illumination also have stuff set up between now and Despicable Me 3. The next movie they release will be the new spin-off Minions, which will feature the voices of Sandra Bullock and Jon Hamm, and that will be coming out on July 10, 2015. The studios also have plans to release two original films in 2016, though those projects are being kept confidential right now.
We first learned that a How The Grinch Stole Christmas remake was in the works last February, and the creative team behind it hasn't changed much since then. Pete Candeland will be making his directorial debut with the feature and will be working with a script from You, Me And Dupress screenwriter Micahel LeSieur. Dr. Seuss' original story has been adapted many times before, but the best known versions are the short film from 1966...
and the live action version directed by Ron Howard in 2000:
Also in the works at Illumination is a new adaptation of The Cat In The Hat, though apparently Grinch wound up jumping ahead of it in line. That project was first announced in 2012 when Rob Lieber (the upcoming Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day) was hired to pen the script.
Are you looking forward to the new adaptation of How The Grinch Stole Christmas and/or Despicable Me 3? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
