Illumination’s CEO confirms that the company’s next movie release will be an original. He also shares plans for what to look forward to in the future.
Original Illumination Movie
When asked about how far out the studio is planning for its movies, CEO Chris Meledandri told Collider that currently, he has a pretty good idea of what the film release schedule looks like through 2030—although the company doesn’t have every film exactly slotted in.
There are certain pieces that might move, but we have a pretty good idea about the overall complexion of the slate.
-Meledandri
He goes on to explain that he wants there to be even more attention inside the company regarding original films. “Our next film that will come out after Minions & Monsters will be an original, no underlying material. Don’t get me wrong, we love adapting IP, and it’s incredible to be in a position where you can make films based on a set of continuing characters, but sometimes we find ourselves in this position where the existing films start to crowd out the energy that we’re spending on looking for what those original next films are.”
Meledandri also shares how the company balances the need to push for original films and tried-and-true sequels that are going to succeed:
“When we started, the objective was never to achieve ubiquity with Illumination, because I felt like that was an ambition that was just too grand and not realistic. I’ve always hesitated to compare ourselves to Disney or to Pixar, who were obviously the pioneers. We followed in Pixar’s footsteps. However, even a partial awareness can make an incredibly significant difference — a partial awareness of Illumination and just the promise that if it’s an Illumination film for a subset of our audience, they feel, ‘Oh, let me check out what it is.’
Simply to get a subset of our audience to search out information about our films is a big leg up. It was a big leg up when we started as an ambition, and in today’s world, where our ability to use traditional means to market films has become increasingly diluted, it’s even that much more important today.”
So, when they look to see how the Illumination name is sticking, they are always surprised to discover that there’s more awareness than originally thought in the United States and internationally.
He concludes by saying he feels it’s an essential component of their ability to develop material based on completely original ideas because gaining even just an awareness of an original story today is harder than it’s ever been before.
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