Rise of the GentleMinions

Heading into this past weekend, Minions: The Rise of Gru was projected to earn between $65 million and $75 million in its box office debut – a respectable total, but nothing to really write home about, especially coming on the heels of Top Gun: Maverick.

Instead, the Universal Pictures flick set an all-time July 4 weekend record, earning over $125 million in ticket sales thanks to… a TikTok trend?

🍿📈 If you meme it, they will come… Avid TikTok users have probably seen at least one of the 225,000+ videos (and counting) featuring teenagers, usually males, dressed in suits and ties and applauding in unison while attending showings of The Rise of Gru – all set to the same catchy rap track, called Rich Minion.

• The trend appears to have grown so large that it actually affected ticket sales. Per theater exit pollster PostTrak, 34% of The Rise of Gru’s opening weekend audience consisted of 13- to 17-year-olds, up from 8% for the last Despicable Me movie back in 2017.

📱 Bottom line: There’s a fine line between viral meme success and total failure – just ask Sony about Morbius. But if there’s one thing we know for sure, it’s that studios will keep trying to tip the social scales in their favor... and Universal did a pretty good job this time.