Illumination Pencils In Dates For Minions And Sing Sequels Because $$$$$$$$$$$

Illumination Entertainment, the studio behind such entities as The Fart Gun and a psychedelic sausage sequence,  has announced some new release dates for their upcoming movies. The Secret Life Of Pets, previously scheduled for July 13, 2018 will now come out on July 3, 2019, the same release date that Despicable Me 2 opened on in 2013 to massive success. It seemed odd that the studio was planning to get a major animated sequel out just two years after the first Pets movie given that typical animated sequels take three years to make.


But that's not all! Illumination will release two sequels in 2020; one is Minions 2 on July 3, 2020, a sequel to the 2015 hit film that grossed $1.1 billion worldwide, making Minions the second-biggest animated film of all-time worldwide. And then, on Christmas Day 2020, Sing 2 hits theaters worldwide. Looks like Matthew McConaughey will be getting the kind of easy frequent voice-over paychecks Mike Myers kept getting for the Shrek movies in the first decade of the 21st century. No word yet on if Garth Jennings is coming back to direct this sequel, nor what the plot will be. I presume the plot will be all the CGI animals going on some kind of musical tour overseas, because that's usually what family movie sequels (like Madagascar 3, Cars 2 and Illumination's own Minions) do, isn't it?

In addition to all those films, Illumination's upcoming slate also has Despicable Me 3 this summer and a fully-CG animated film adaptation of How The Grinch Stole Christmas starring Benedict Cumberbatch coming next November. This means Illumination's entire feature film slate until 2021 is entirely comprised of sequels and remakes. Between all these upcoming Illumination titles, Cars 3, The Emoji Movie, Gnomeo & Juliet 2: Sherlock Gnomes and that new Smurfs movie, the future sure does look like a bright and creatively vibrant place for American feature film animation!

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