15 Most Profitable Movies Of All Time
14. Minions (2015)
You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who didn't love the Minions first introduced in 2010's Despicable Me. They're cute, funny, and seemingly indestructible. Universal Pictures could have adapted them into a television show, but the studio instead opted to launch a mini-Minions film franchise.
The first movie in the franchise was an amazing success. The Minions were as adorably evil as you'd expect them to be, and the movie entertained both children and adults with its nuanced humor and over-the-top hijinks. Minions did so well, it outgrossed the movie it was based on, and it did it with a reasonable budget.
It cost the studio around $81 million to animate and produce Minions, and it pulled in $1.272 billion at the worldwide box office. That's an insane amount of money for an animated film, but Minions had everything it needed to succeed, thanks to its characters, animators, and voice actors who brought them to life.
Because its budget was considerably lower than most modern blockbusters, Minions made a nice profit for the studio, which warranted a sequel expected to release in 2021. For the 2015 film, the estimated profit made by the studio amounted to around $502.34 million.