The evolution of the Minions for concept art.
What Could Have Been in Despicable Me.Despicable Me
- Behold, concept art for the Minions
◊. Among the various concepts for them, the Minions were considered as short, big-nosed men in overalls, robots, and lumpy mutant-looking creatures before settling on something resembling their current design. - Despicable Me has its origins in 2008. At the time, it was originally titled Evil Me. This article features a pitch bible to Universal and Illumination that is drawn by Sergio Pablos. The early drafts are similar to the final film except for a few different things:
- Gru had a more Obviously Evil design with a Dracula-esque appearance.
- The girls had younger designs, looking more like three-year-olds.
- There was going to be superheroes and Gru would've been the traditional villain.
- Before Mr. Perkins was created, Gru would've made a deal with the entire goverment to steal the moon.
- There was no Dr. Nefario.
- And last but not least, the Minions were going to be mythology and monster villains such as Frankenstein's Monster and Medusa.
- The feature commentary reveals a few as well:
- Kyle was originally the name of Gru's Igor-like human assistant, while his "dog" was named "Kragul". The dog also was able to speak at one point in development.
- The opening scene was originally Gru making breakfast with all of the implements of evil in his kitchen.
- The minions' trip to the store was originally much longer, with them doing things like foiling a robbery, winning some money, and buying a car. The crew also played around with the idea of said minions coming back from their trip to save the day in the end, or not reappear at all until the credits.
- Early on, Vector's shark belonged to Gru and was a shark-rhino hybrid.
- The crew briefly talked about making Vector's base turn into a giant robot in the climax.
Despicable Me 2
- Javier Bardem was considered to voice El Macho.
- According to the directors' commentary on the DVD, Edith was originally going to sneak away and follow Gru when he goes to save Lucy.
- Concept art showed Lucy with a pet dog she carried around with.
- This shows an alternated ending of Gru and Lucy's wedding. They're at a church with two Minions showing up to give the rings. Eduardo and El Pollo are present (while still in custody). Margo and Antonio are still a couple. And Marlena was about to object to the marriage, only to be stopped by Lucy's taser. The ending shows the couple and their daughter walking out of the church, hand in hand.
- This originally showed Gru catching up to Lucy's plane to Australia to ask her out on a date. With his daughter and Minions following. She accepts.
- During the battle with the Evil minions, Antonio was going to save Margo from, they would share The Big Damn Kiss, and then Gru shooting at them with a jelly gun to stop kissing. And then compliment Antonio for the save. And then Margo would tell a confused Antonio that Gru is starting to like him.
Despicable Me 3
- Diedrich Bader, Ty Burrell, John Cena, Will Forte, Josh Gad, Bill Hader, Ed Helms, Ashton Kutcher, Danny McBride, John Malkovich, Ed O'Neill, Andy Samberg, Alan Tudyk, Bruce Willis and Steve Zahn were considered for the role of Balthazar Bratt before the casting of Trey Parker.
- Idina Menzel was considered to voice Valerie Da Vinci.
- At one point, Bratt was meant to be The Dragon to a more serious villain, but the writers and studio found the original villain to be too humorless and boring, and finally decided to make Bratt the Big Bad after seeing the humorous character design.
- Trey Parker revealed that Bratt was going to sing "Karma Chameleon" at one point in the film, though the scene was dropped.
- Lucy's original subplot would have involved her fighting crime in Freedonia, though it was later decided to have her become more involved with the girls after the writers felt that the crimefighting plot was too disconnected to the rest of the story. At one point, she was going to hunt a purse-snatcher through the cheese festival in a chase scene involving a lot of cheese puns.
