Dave Rosenbaum was a nervous minion. It was 2010, and Illumination Entertainment was about to release its first animated feature film. Rosenbaum, vice president of talent, had spent two years supervising a team of story artists. They were introducing a weird breed of little yellow characters called minions, assistants to an evil villain plotting to steal the moon. They had no idea whether this new film, Despicable Me, would be a hit or a bust.
Spoiler alert: It went pretty well.
Rosenbaum could not have anticipated the phenomenon Despicable Me — and those minions — would become. (By the way, the first minion is Dave’s namesake thanks to ad-libbing by actor Steve Carell.)
Rosenbaum received dual degrees in theater and business at Richmond before earning a master’s degree in producing from the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. He worked at DreamWorks Studios and was directing films in Bulgaria prior to receiving an offer in 2007 to join a new animation company being formed by Chris Meledandri, former president of 20th Century Fox Animation. It’s been a wild ride since then.
“My job is to find great artists with limitless imaginations, wherever they may be in the world,” Rosenbaum said. “We’re currently working on four films coming out in the next two years, plus marketing games, toys, and rides for theme parks.”
All of that requires a lot of talented artists. A large part of Rosenbaum’s work involves scouting and managing artistic talent. And all of those artists have given people around the world the little yellow creatures in overalls, whose language, Rosenbaum said, was created and voiced by the film’s directors.
The success of the Despicable Me franchise underscores Rosenbaum’s argument that business can’t survive without art, and art can’t survive without business. Minions, which was released in July 2015, netted more than $400 million in worldwide box office sales in its opening week. It’s currently ranked 10th in all-time worldwide gross sales, according to film industry monitor boxofficemojo.com.
Why have the minions become such a phenomenon? “There’s something innately good about them,” Rosenbaum said. “They’re always trying to help; they’re just not good at that. A lot of people see themselves as minions.”
