Minions: The Rise of Gru movie delayed by 1 year to July 2021

The ‘Minions: The Rise of Gru’ release has now been delayed til July 2021 following the coronavirus outbreak.

The project’s production company, Illumination Animation has now confirmed last that the hotly anticpiated movie’s summer release scheduled for July 3rd 2020 has been scrapped, and MarkMeets can reveal that the animated motion picture – which features Steve Carell as the voice of Gru – will now drop on July 2nd, 2021. The 3D movie also stars Alan Arkin, Julie Andrews, Taraji P. Henson.

The untold story of one twelve-year-old’s dream to become the world’s greatest supervillain is the sequel to Minions (2015), and spin-off/prequel to the main Despicable Me film series, it will be directed again by Kyle Balda, with Brad Ableson and Jonathan del Val as co-directors.

The film has taken the release slot which was scheduled for ‘Sing 2‘, and as a result the animated film – which features vocal talents from the likes of Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson, Taron Egerton, and Matthew McConaughey – has been pushed back to December 22nd, 2021.

But that means the ‘Wicked‘ movie, which was due to drop on December 22nd, 2021, no longer has a release date for the time being.

Last month, Illumination Animation had to close its studios in France, as a result of the coronavirus lockdown in the country to limit the spread of the respiratory disease, meaning that the the ‘Despicable Me’ spin-off/ prequel wouldn’t be completed in time for a July release this year.

A spokesperson said: “In response to the severity of the situation in France, we are temporarily closing our Illumination Mac Guff studio in Paris. With this decision we are abiding by the French Government’s guidelines and doing everything possible to slow the spread of the virus as we care for our artists and their families.

“This means we will be unable to finish ‘Minions: The Rise of Gru‘ in time for our planned global releases in late June and early July. While we all grapple with the enormity of this crisis, we must put the safety and protection of our employees above all. We look forward to finding a new release date for the return of Gru and the Minions.”