Minions & Monsters Final Trailer Is Wild 1920s Hollywood Chaos

The Minions are going to Hollywood — and they’re bringing monsters with them. Illumination has released the final trailer for Minions & Monsters, and if you weren’t already counting down to July 1, you might be now.

The film is set in the 1920s, at the dawn of cinema, and follows an entirely new tribe of Minions — led by two fresh faces named James and Henry — as they attempt to conquer Old Hollywood. Their plan: make a monster movie. Their solution to the casting problem: summon actual monsters. From a book. Because of course.

The official synopsis calls it “the rambunctious, ridiculous and totally true story of how the Minions conquered Hollywood, became movie stars, lost everything, unleashed monsters onto the world and then banded together to try and save the planet from the mayhem they had just created.” Totally true. Obviously.

The trailer has a genuinely surprising vibe — part Damien Chazelle’s Babylon, part Lovecraftian horror, and entirely unhinged in the best way. There’s also a new addition to the crew: a small, talking green monster freed from the pages of that summoning book, and he is immediately, inexplicably adorable.

A Stacked Cast and the Man Behind the Minions

Pierre Coffin is back in the director’s chair — a role he knows well, having helmed the first three Despicable Me films and the original Minions movie. He also, as ever, voices the Minions themselves, a job he’s held since their big-screen debut in 2010. He co-wrote the screenplay with Brian Lynch, who also wrote Minions and both Secret Life of Pets films and serves here as executive producer. Chris Meledandri, Illumination’s founder and CEO, produces alongside Bill Ryan, who also produced The Super Mario Bros. Movie.

The voice cast is stacked: Trey Parker, Jesse Eisenberg, Christoph Waltz, Jeff Bridges, Allison Janney, Zoey Deutch, Bobby Moynihan, and Phil LaMarr. That’s a lot of talent in service of a lot of chaos.

Minions & Monsters will have its world premiere as the opening film at the 2026 Annecy International Animation Film Festival on June 21 — the same honor Despicable Me 4 received at the 2024 edition of the festival.

A Big Summer for Animation

Illumination is riding some serious momentum into this release. The studio’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie sequel — produced alongside Nintendo — is closing in on $900 million worldwide, making it one of the biggest animated hits in recent memory.

Minions & Monsters is the seventh entry in the Despicable Me franchise overall and the third film to put the Minions front and center, following the 2015 original and 2022’s Minions: The Rise of Gru. It arrives into what’s shaping up to be a loaded summer for animation — sharing the season with Toy Story 5, PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie, and the long-awaited live-action/animation hybrid Coyote vs. Acme.

But honestly? A Minions movie set in 1920s Hollywood with Lovecraftian monsters and a goblin sidekick might just be the most original pitch in that entire lineup. Every kid you know is going to be speaking Minion-gibberish by the Fourth of July weekend. Consider yourself warned.

Minions & Monsters opens in theaters on July 1.