(Bloomberg) — Australian teen Bill Hirst timed it right last week when he posted a clip on TikTok of himself and other youngsters in business suits headed to the opening of “Minions: The Rise of Gru.”
Within hours, the video had reached 10,000 views.
By morning it hit 6 million. Now, it’s nearing 37 million — and counting — one of scores of “Minions”-related postings to go viral and help turn the Universal Pictures film into one of the year’s big hits.
Click here to see the TikTok video
It’s a happy ending for Universal, part of Comcast Corp., and Illumination Entertainment, the animation studio that made the picture.
Executives at the production company spent the past couple years building a following for “Minions” on TikTok to see how it might influence turnout for the film. Illumination, run by Chris Meledandri, had long wrestled with how to sustain interest in its movie franchises between releases.
While Walt Disney Co.
engages its fans year-round with TV shows, theme parks, toys, and fan events, Illumination goes comparatively quiet in between movie hits like the “Minions” predecessor “Despicable Me” and “The Secret Life of Pets.”
TikTok, a social-media platform for user-generated clips, provides a sweet spot for companies looking to reach young consumers.
That proved especially true with the latest “Minions” film, which features a neatly clad supervillain named Gru and the namesake sidekicks.
Illumination posted its first video to the “Minions” account in February 2020, ahead of the original release date for the film.
When the pandemic delayed the debut, Illumination kept posting. The clips included videos featuring the minions and star Steve Carell, who provides the voice of Gru. The audience grew to more than 4 million people.
Then last week, social media interest exploded — driven by clips of teens showing up at theaters dressed like Gru, in business suits, ties and dark sunglasses.
The hashtag “minioncult” attracted more than 390 million views, while the hashtag “gentleminions” drew more than 47 million.
Participants often mimicked Gru’s evil pose -– their hands clasped and held under their chins.
Some showed up at the theaters with a snack adored by the “Minions” characters: bananas.
Hirst, the Australian teen, credits a friend for coming up with the idea to be part of the trend. Once they arrived at the theater, they saw they weren’t alone.
“We saw another group that was dressed up as minions,” Hirst said.
“And then we also saw a smaller group in suits as well, so we just started mingling with them.”
Sales Record
The result has been record sales for the summer release. In the US “Minions: The Rise of Gru” brought in holiday weekend revenue of $123.1 million, the most for a Fourth of July release.
The global sales tallied $248 million as of Thursday, according to Box Office Mojo.
Illumination’s marketing efforts have played a big role. Yeat, a rapper with a penchant for going viral on TikTok, released a song titled “Rich Minion,” which was later used by the company to promote the film.
Many teens subsequently embedded the tune in their TikTok videos under the gentleminions hashtag.
Such collaborations have helped the film attract a large teen audience, with 13- to 17-year-olds making up over 30% of the movie’s opening weekend audience, according to Shawn Robbins, chief analyst with Boxoffice Pro.
“That’s exactly the audience that grew up with the original ‘Despicable’ movies when they started coming out a little over a decade ago,” Robbins said.
“Wherever the trends are starting, which is largely on TikTok, that’s often going to be a good indicator of where there might be breakout potential for an audience.”
Despite the overwhelming enthusiasm from fans across the globe, not all cinemas are welcoming the throngs.
The British publication the Guardian reported some theaters were barring unaccompanied children wearing suits because some groups had been loud and disruptive, making it hard for others to enjoy the movie.
A spokesperson for the Odeon chain told the newspaper that the company had to restrict access in some places “due to a small number of incidents.”
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