Will Sandra Bullock’s villain Scarlet Overkill return for animated sequel Minions 2? The Minions first appeared in 2010’s Despicable Me as the comical henchmen to evil supervillain Felonious Gru (Steve Carrell). The Minions stole the show with their cuteness and language comprised mostly of gibberish mixed with the occasional recognizable word.
The Minions later returned for both Despicable Me 2 and Despicable Me 3 and quickly emerged as the breakout stars of the entire franchise. They also as the mascots of Illumination, the animation studio behind the series. This is why they earned their own spinoff with 2015’s Minions which revealed they’ve existed since the start of life on Earth. The spinoff’s story takes place in 1968 and finds them teaming up with the first female supervillain Scarlet Overkill and her husband Herb (Jon Hamm).
While Minions received mixed reviews from critics the film was a huge success, grossing over $1 billion worldwide. With numbers like that it only pays to keep the franchise going, so Minions 2 has been confirmed for July 2020. Little is known about the actual plot of the sequel, however, and whether or not Scarlet Overkill will return.
Scarlet Overkill made for a great villain in Minions and the movie ends with her and Herb being frozen by a young Gru, who steals the Crown of the Queen of England back from them. This leads the Minions to seek him out, meaning young Gru will probably be the villain of the next installment. That said, there’s plenty of room for Scarlet Overkill and Herb to return also.
One issue that might prevent that is Sandra Bullock’s aversion to sequels. She had bad experiences making both Speed 2: Cruise Control and Miss Congeniality 2: Armed And Fabolous, leading her to swear off follow-ups. She turned down The Heat 2 for this reason, though the success of recent projects like Ocean’s 8 and Bird Box might cause her to reconsider the merits of sequels. Minions 2 would be less demanding also considering it a voice-over role, though it’s currently unknown if Scarlet Overkill will even feature into the sequel.
Minions 2 is a guaranteed hit regardless, so Illumination Animation can afford to keep the production under wraps while they work on it. It was also confirmed in 2017 Descipable Me 4 is in development, meaning Minions 2 might focus on the bumbling henchmen teaming up with another supervillain instead of Gru. While it might be fun to see the exploits of a young Gru it would help the spinoff series forge its own identity if it didn’t rely on him as the main character.
