Far Out!

DESPICABLE ME Franchise Business Tidbit & Speculation

Here's a real end-of-times scenario: "For Comcast, the Minions have become the company's Mickey Mouse."

O_O

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/07/business/media/media-merger-success-comcast-and-nbcuniversal-say-yes.html

The article explains that soon after Comcast acquired NBCUniversal, DM2 and later, Minions, benefited from "Project Symphony" aka "companywide promotions of major projects".

So that tells us MINIONS' billion-plus profit was likely the result of epic and strategic marketing engineering rather than word-of-mouth buzz. It also helps explain why the Overkills, in part, didn't break out as much as one would expect based on the sheer amount of exposure they had, which was more than any of the other villains in the franchise (ruling out story flaws for the moment). DM and Gru are examples of true break out films and characters, whereas MINIONS' success seems to be based mostly on a significant amount of manufactured hype. DM seems to be more beloved than MINIONS and that despite a lower box office profit. The Overkills may have just coasted on the marketing boost (and possibly suffered as well from the "cash cow" perception surrounding the film) whereas Gru and his story had to convince audiences of their worth without the benefit of monster marketing.

As Overkills fans, we feel the characters have a certain amount of worth, but imho another thing this article tells me is their worth was likely compromised by both the cash cow nature of the project as well as being underdeveloped characters whose sole narrative purpose was to be in service to Gru's heroic journey. It's like doublethink: I feel both frustrated by and resigned to the situation.

That said, the article makes me wonder how much Comcast intends to exploit existing franchise characters further because based on what the article states, the company sets a lot of stuff in motion early on. They're planning things years in advance. I doubt they're just going to walk away from that huge investment anytime soon. In a small way, this information makes me question Sandra Bullock's claim of Scarlet being a "one-off" character (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwUxuB3XB9g). Specifically, does Comcast see the character (or any of the franchise's human characters) in the same light? If it's trying to become powerful enough to rival Disney, might it also intend to further exploit existing human characters in the franchise? Because Disney plugs its characters into all kinds of mediums and stories, over and over and over again.

I'm not sure if this revelation makes me more hopeful about future Overkills content, but given its existence I may continue to keep an eye out for potential clues.