What's RUINING Illumination Entertainment?

business in 2010 illumination entertainment arrived on the scene and quickly became a contender in the animation industry as a company they have a philosophy to create movies on a low budget to make films that have a wide appeal and to push those movies as best as they can from an advertising point of view and with the arrival of the Grinch this Christmas we are gonna see this guy's face everywhere illumination is a studio that is a financial Titan with some other films breaking a billion dollars at the box office but despite their monetary success their films seem to lack a certain quality and come across as average that even though they have enough potential talent and resources they seem okay with making films that play it safe keep it simple and keep it cheap [Music] what is the cause of this why do they continue to appeal to the lowest common denominator and is it a waste of their artistic talent and how will this affect the animation industry as a whole well let's find out illumination began with a fella named Chris and melody Andre he's the CEO and founder of the company and practically runs the show he got to start back in the early 90s at Disney and worked as a producer on Cool Runnings a few years after that he moved on to 20th Century Fox and was an executive and their animation department he played a big role in the acquisition of blue sky studios and also the creation of their first film ice age with this help Foxy animation was able to find success with blue sky in the following films Chris found himself as the president of Fox animation but left the company in 2007 to form illumination entertainment there were some folks who followed him from blue sky studio and even Disney so he had a solid team to back him up there was now a new contender in the animation industry and they were ready to make some money let's talk about the movies that illumination has made so far the first film was released back in July of 2010 and is called Despicable Me the premise is about a super villain named GRU and how he wants to be the best villain of all time in the process of trying to steal some technology from a rival he adopted three orphans and eventually grew close to them and became their full-time father I actually like this movie I thought it was cute and fun but it also had some heart to it I mean yeah it introduced the monster that would be the minions franchise but I personally think it's a good movie for illumination it was an incredibly successful launch for the studio it only cost about 69 million dollars to make made over 540 million dollars at the box office this was a great first step for the studio and people were excited to see what they would do next jelly beans well this was an underwhelming follow up even by illumination standards puffs is a combination of animation and live-action and the same vein as Smurfs or Alvin and the Chipmunks it was released in April of 2011 so it was trying to appeal to the Easter demographic which is an audience I guess what are you up to is called a coup d'etat which is a French for pop did not do nearly as well as Despicable Me both critically and financially though I wouldn't call it a failure it cost about 60 million dollars to make but made around a hundred and eighty four million so at least it made a profit but the bar was set low for illumination and unfortunately for us high-quality films aren't their main priority don't forget folks this is a studio that believes in making relatively cheap stuff that appeals to the masses next for the studio was the Lorax in 2012 now this wasn't the first time a dr. Seuss film was made for the big screen before the Lorax there was horton hears a who in 2008 and before that well there was this stuff this amazing device can instantly make cupcakes out of anything that you have in the kitchen wait a minute did you say anything anything anything and anything anything I'll get you and I look like a bloody accident I looked more into these dr. Seuss movies from the looks of it he never really wanted his books to become full-fledged films and refused to sell the rights to them after he died in 1991 his widow had control over his estate and auctioned off the different properties for a high price so yeah it's kind of weird watching these films knowing that dr. Seuss himself wouldn't be happy about them from what I read and Chris Melandri is good friends with dr. Seuss's widow and ilumination made a deal with her so because of that we have the Lorax we vacate the premises Jackson get out [Music] the war axe guardian of the forest I speak for the trees the movie itself was ok but I thought it was strange how they ended the film on a happy note in the book it was more foreboding with a message of how serious environmental disaster can be in the movie everything was ok which kind of defeats the message of the story also there's a bit of irony that the movie has an environmental message but was created by a studio that uses a ton of plastic in their merchandise our research shows that if you put something in a plastic bottle people will buy it exactly and what's more when we build a new factory to make the plastic bottles the air quality is just going to get worse yeah well at least Danny DeVito did a good job as a Lorax you were you I'm the trash man following the Lorax was despicable me too in 2013 illuminations first sequel needless to say it was going to do well but it exceeded expectations by a long shot almost breaking a billion dollars at the box office [Music] it was now very clear that the despicable me franchise was a Titan in the world of animation and was Illuminations flagship the movie itself was man it wasn't as fun or interesting as the first but it wasn't terrible either it was just average and that would be the theme for illumination for years to come in 2015 they arrived the minions from Despicable Me were insanely popular both with kids and adults so it only made financial sense to give them their own spin-off even though it completely ignores the lore from the original movie minions minions have been on this planet far longer than we have out of all of the movies and illuminations library this one is the most notorious it was everywhere and people couldn't get enough of them it was on a scale comparable to frozen and that goes for box office numbers to the film it over a billion dollars and probably made much much more with their merchandise and don't even get me started on the Facebook minion pages which for some reason moms adore [Music] due to its massive popularity the movie also got a lot of hate from people that tends to happen when something is that popular but as far as the movie itself goes I found an average just like the last film and the one before that these movies are all the same cue characters on a cute journey with slapstick and potty humor that kids and their parents love and there's nothing wrong with that I watched this movie with my nephew and he loved it and that's okay what gets me though is how this type of success for illumination only reinforces this mentality for them to keep the bar low and their budget even lower 2016 was the first time illumination released two movies in the same year The Secret Life of pets in July and Singh in December both are very successful financially but incredibly average from a critical point of view honestly that's the theme of this video so we should be used to it by now secret life is about talking pets that's it it's like Toy Story but with animals and people loved it I mean pets are universal so it only made sense q characters a heartfelt story trendy voice actors well some of them used to be overall the film was mad at me I mean it looks fine but the story was just boring as hell most audiences loved it though and it did amazing at the box office so that's all that really matters to illumination oh just ignore what just happened okay sing was also painfully average it's just a save the Rec Center story combined with American Idol it has trendy songs popular voice actors and anthropomorphic characters honestly the animal models look like design Jax from Zootopia also the trailer was so dumb it revealed us so many plot points how did I end up with a son not you that's MRSA in 2017 Despicable Me 3 came out and just like before was incredibly popular it broke a billion dollars and continue the success train for the franchise at this point illumination knows that these movies are going to be insanely successful no matter what people just love them and they only continue to break records out of the seven animated films to gross over a billion dollars illumination made two of them with a third that almost qualified considering how long they've been around for that's very impressive too bad their actual films aren't as of right now it's 2018 and their next film is the Grinch I'm not too excited about this film and Chuck Jones version of the book The Grinch looked mean and spiteful with a twisted smile for illuminations version he looks soft like someone who is slightly irritated with a furrow brow it's a shame too because the original design for the Grinch was a much more accurate to the books an original cartoon this works but this Oh No thank you but illumination likes to play it safe so I'm not surprised also the advertising for this movie is absurd and the internet is having a field day with it [Music] mr. Grinch there are a few films on the horizon for illumination and most of them are sequels secret life of pets - sing - minions - Despicable Me 4 can we please get something original wait no no no no no no I take it back you go to heaven before you die this honestly baffles me I don't understand why Nintendo and Miyamoto would go with illumination they already have some of the characters appearing in wreck-it Ralph so why not stick with Disney perhaps it's because Universal as the parent company of illumination and Nintendo and Universal or partners building a theme park so maybe that's why but for a company that's all about quality I'm surprised to see Nintendo side with illumination hopefully Nintendo will have control over the project and the movie will be good but I wouldn't hold my breath remember the last Mario movie [Music] so we know that their films are wildly popular and successful so why am I saying that the studio is being ruined well for a couple of reasons first off Christmas ad and relaunched the studio with the idea of saving money that successful films don't have to be expensive and can still have a wide appeal to his credits he's absolutely right and has the numbers to back up that claim most Pixar and Disney films cost at least 100 million dollars while illumination spins around 60 to 70 million dollars here's the thing though this sets a scary precedent for not only illumination but for other studios and the animation industry sometimes you need that extra bit of money to make a movie to make sure that your workers have what they need to make that final product but despite the billions of dollars ilumination makes we don't really see their studio giving that much of a budget increase this is concerning because it's not uncommon for artists to be underpaid and overworked and low-budget movies only make these problems more common also this might encourage other studios to copy illuminations business model to cut back on cost but still expect hundreds of millions of dollars in return oh I see you don't have the money do you [Music] something else that frustrates me about this is how much money has thrown into advertising when illumination makes a movie you will most likely know they hit up everything and I mean everything instead of investing money into their product they invest more of it into their advertising this is gonna be really awkward if they have commercials on my video well mind the final problem I have with a studio is how artificial their movies are it comes across as a product something that has been focused tested to groups of children and parents to make sure it's airtight and marketable illumination does advertising in-house so they know how to roll out their content whether it be a beloved dr. Seuss character or a talking piece of corn no that's not the say that Disney or Pixar hasn't done the same I mean unless we forget but illumination has made this into an art and they have become very very good at it and unfortunately I feel that it comes at the cost of the quality of their films at the end of the day illumination was never great from a critical point of view and they most likely never will but it quickly became clear to me that they are satisfied with making average movies that make lots and lots of money to me that's a terrible waste of their talent they have the skills and resources to make incredible stuff but that isn't their priority it boils down to making cheap films that have broad appeal Disney took a risk with Snow White Pixar took a risk with Toy Story even dreamworks took a risk with shrek and they all paid off but illumination does not take chances they know how to play it safe and that's where they want to be speaking of DreamWorks illumination acquired them in 2016 and now oversees their projects this concerns me DreamWorks is not perfect but they have made some awesome stuff with some real heart but now that illumination oversees them I'm afraid that they'll fall into the same situation as them for example the first thing illumination one said after buying their studio was to get a shrek sequel into production so they could cash in on the franchise hopefully illumination will change in the future and will be more invested in telling stories and making art instead of treating their films like some kind of product but I wouldn't hold my breath I mean we can't forget the company that owns them something that is a thousand times worse than any minion hey guys thanks for watching the video if you liked it give it a like and sub for more future videos also a shout out to all of my supporters on patreon if you want to support my content go hit up the link in the description alright thanks again for watching and I'll see you guys next time [Music]

Channel: Saberspark

Views: 2,127,126

Keywords: saber, saberspark, illumination, Illumination Entertainment, what's ruining, ruining, what ruined, ruined, sony, minions, despicable me, grinch 2018, grinch, lorax, animation, analysis, video essay, review, What's RUINING Illumination Entertainment, What's RUINING Illumination

Id: pjInxtfVJNI

Length: 19min 59sec (1199 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 09 2018