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Toy Story 3

Despicable Me’s evil genius Gru (centre) goes for a ride with three orphan girls (Courtesy of Universal Pictures)


A stone’s throw from Paris’s Eiffel Tower, just behind an Aston Martin garage, Illumination Entertainment is a hive of activity.

 

Everywhere you look, artists, programmers and designers are hunched over computer monitors, rendering scenes and putting the finishing touches not on a French indie film, but on Universal Pictures’ Despicable Me, which is expected to be one of the summer’s biggest 3D animated releases.

And while Despicable Me is the new animation studio’s first feature, its partner studio Universal is hoping the company will generate two to three films for them each year…so it’s important the movie is a hit.

Illumination Entertainment’s European locale seems a good fit for this film about Gru, an evil supergenius bent on taking over the entire world. Unfortunately, life as an evil supergenius has not been easy for Gru. He used to be one of our premier criminal masterminds, but now every time he hatches a plan to take over the world it’s thwarted by his arch-rival, Vector, the planet’s #1 Supervillain. Now, just as Gru’s about to set his latest plan — to steal the moon — in motion, he encounters an obstacle in the form of three adorable orphan girls who want Gru to adopt them. Worse, Vector has caught onto Gru’s moon-stealing plan and is trying to snatch his glory by claiming the lump of rock for himself.

Directors Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud — who are French and American respectively — say having the studio located in the heart of Paris makes it easier to employ talent from various countries. “We had storyboarding done all over the world — in Britain, here in France, in Spain, in the United States, both east coast and west coast, and Canada. The rest of the production element is all here in France,” says Renaud. “It’s all here, but we have German guys, Spanish guys…. On this project people have been flown in from every country around the globe, so it is a good location in the middle for everyone.”

Both directors have worked in the animation industry for years, although this is their first project together. Having started his career as a junior animator at Steven Spielberg’s Amblimation studio, Coffin has since made a wide range of commercials and animated shorts. On the other hand, Renaud comes from a comic-book background, having previously worked for both Marvel and DC before moving on to animated films as a story artist for Robots and Ice Age: The Meltdown among others.

As for the flesh-and-blood talent behind the animated characters, Forgetting Sarah Marshall’s Jason Segel is the voice of the upstart villain Vector, while Gru’s pipes come courtesy of a very busy Steve Carell who has used his hiatus time from TV’s "The Office" to squeeze out three films this year — Date Night, Despicable Me and Dinner for Schmucks, also out this month.

Despicable Me
Directors Pierre Coffin (left) and Chris Renaud
“The voices are all-important as they give the characters their life and personality,” says Coffin, “and we were confident that Steve Carell could bring Gru to life. Very early on he landed this voice that he describes as being inspired by Bela Lugosi. We loved it and I think it instantly helped us define the character.”

The film also features the voices of Russell Brand and Danny McBride, "Flight of the Conchords"' Jemaine Clement, and Julie Andrews as Gru’s evil mom. “The appeal for us with Julie Andrews was she plays against type,” Coffin says with a laugh. “With her character, we understand why Gru chose a life of evil. He never got any love from his mum. It’s kind of fun to have Mary Poppins not being the goody-goody Mary Poppins character we all expect.”

As the film’s focus, Gru is a likeable villain who has an army of bouncy yellow minions to do his dirty work, and a wealth of deadly devices at his disposal, including shrink rays and freeze guns — everything a typical James Bond baddie could hope for. Vector, on the other hand, employs more modern and sleek gadgetry, he’s a supercriminal for the iPod generation.

“Part of what the appeal is with Gru is that villains always tend to be the most interesting characters. From Darth Vader to the Joker they are always very compelling,” says Coffin. “One of the main challenges was that we couldn’t have the villain acting like a real bad guy, going around killing people, so we had to find a balance between a family film, with its appeal and charm, but also letting this guy be cruel, mean and villainous in a comical manner.”

Renaud says it was also important to make Gru an underdog. “That’s the key, I think, to how he remains appealing. People always root for the underdog — you always kind of root for them even if they are not such a nice person.”

So why are both Gru and his rival Vector trying to steal the moon? “We wanted to come up with something that was silly, because we can’t actually have anyone murder anyone. So theft is actually a kind of a ‘light’ crime,” Coffin explains. “Stealing the moon is metaphorical. It’s the best trophy anyone could get. We play on it a little bit, but it doesn’t cause worldwide disruption or anything. We play on it in a silly cartoon way. It’s a good villain goal without veering into territory that is frankly too dark for a family film.”

--

Mark Pilkington is a freelance movie writer based in London, England.



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