Me, ugly and filthy 3 (TF1): a box made in France in Hollywood!

A bad man’s redemption in three steps. At the start of the saga, the super-criminal Gru, despite himself, takes the side of the good guys when he is chosen as the adoptive father by three adorable orphans Margo, Edith and Agnès. Winning the love of the little ones, he discovers a heart and forgets his evil plans. In Opus 2, Gru teams up with the Villain Fighting Squad to spy on Lucy Wilde to defeat the sinister El Macho. She seduces Lucy and her daughters are very happy to have such a mother. At the start of their third adventure, Gru and Lucy let Balthazar Bratt, the criminal who stole the world’s largest diamond, escape, and the Anti-Villain League immediately dispatches them. While depressed, his brother Dru, whose mother has concealed his existence from him, comes in contact with Gru. Dru is a jolly billionaire who doubles as a genius thief. He convinces Gru to take the diamond from Bratt’s lair, and the duo embark on this nearly impossible mission!

“French virtuosos” of 3D special effects

In 2007, American producer Chris Meledandri was looking for a studio to shoot his company’s first animated feature film. When he meets director Pierre Coffin and the 3D virtuosos of Mac Guff Line, a visual effects creation studio set in the structure of a former Paris parking lot, he knows he’s found the ideal suit. It convinces Universal Studios. I’m ugly and bad Made in Paris: “When these great artists showed me their first character designs, I immediately loved them…”

Head full of ideas!

This collaboration was a global hit, with $540 million raising at the box office in 2010. Later, Chris Meledandri joined forces with Mac Guff Line and Universal and formed its subsidiary, Illumination Mac Guff, to go further. And it works: in 2013 episode 2 earned nearly a billion dollars, as did The Minions in 2015! The secret to this success: sincerity, as Pierre Coffin explains: “Those who think we make these movies for money are totally wrong. If we didn’t have ideas, we wouldn’t create them! There’s no question of disappointing fans! A quality requirement confirmed by the nice double of the studio’s new creations in 2016: $875 million like monsters and 634 million, all on stage. A real bonus!

A fun dub

Steve Carell lends his voice to Gru in the United States, and Gad Elmaleh, who translated the “r” in France and brought his fantasy to the character. His younger brother Arie joins him at the dubbing studio to play Dru in the third episode. “It was great playing together,” Gad recalls. Our brothers’ complicity added extra warmth to the movie, and the French public were happy to know it was us! »

Despicable Me 3 is Sunday, July 17 at 9:10 pm TF1

Pascal Pinteau