Latest in Illumination

Chris Meledandri’s Illumination animation house has had a boatload of hits from Despicable Me and Minions to 2023’s global smash The Super Mario Bros Movie. But in between, this underrated (in terms of awards) producer of delightful and genuinely funny toons creates new franchises by embracing originals…

Illumination's upcoming film Migration is a comedy about a family of ducks trying to fly from New York to Jamaica. Writer-director Benjamin Renner makes his 3D animation debut, and John Powell wrote the score for his film. Renner told the audience Saturday at Deadline's Contenders Film: Los Angeles event…

For Migration, composer John Powell was tasked with creating a theme for a reluctant hero that evolves throughout his journey. Written and directed by Benjamin Renner, Migration follows a family of ducks on a new journey. Mack (Kumail Nanjiani) is a mallard who is content with never leaving the safety of…

EXCLUSIVE: The Super Mario Bros. Movie has set its Netflix premiere date for the U.S., Deadline has learned, which is the same day the film is set to leave Peacock: December 3rd. At Netflix, the record-breaker from Uni/Illumination joins a slate of titles with which the whole family can engage. With…

With Tuesday's grosses, Illumination/Nintendo/Universal's The Super Mario Bros. Movie has crossed the $100M (13.74B yen) mark in Japan. In doing so, it becomes Universal's top title ever there. In local currency, Mario overtakes Top Gun: Maverick as the No. 6 Hollywood film of all time in Japan, and is…

The Super Mario Bros. Movie has gotten its Peacock premiere date following a hugely successful run in theaters, the streamer announced on Thursday. The film from Universal and Illumination begins streaming exclusively on the platform on August 3rd, and will be joined there by behind-the-scenes cast…

UPDATE, writethru: Illumination/Nintendo/Universal's The Super Mario Bros Movie has got super game as it levels up to cross 1B$ at the global box office through Sunday. It now becomes the 10th animated film in history to cross $1B worldwide, and is the 10th biggest animated film of all time globally…

Illumination boss Chris Meledandri announced the voice-over cast today at CinemaCon for the studio’s animated pic Migration, set for a December 22 release. The pic follows a family of ducks who try to convince their overprotective father to go on the vacation of a lifetime…

Illumination/Nintendo/Universal's The Super Mario Bros Movie has notched yet another milestone, crossing the $900M mark globally with Tuesday's grosses included.  Through 21 days in release, the worldwide cume is $901.2M with $444M from domestic and $457.2M at the international box office. As we…

The Easter holiday weekend may be over, but that didn’t mean it was game over for Illumination/Universal’s Super Mario Bros Movie, which clocked a fantastic $20.1 million on Monday. That figure is easily the best Monday at the box office ever for an Illumination title, beating out the $19.6M earned by Sing…

While streamers typically get by on thrifty marketing budgets, pushing content largely on their menus, most motion picture studios, like Universal, still have all the superpowers in the world to blast a movie out of a canon. But here’s something to keep in mind as we detail Universal’s promo…

SUNDAY UPDATE: Illumination/Nintendo/Universal's The Super Mario Bros Movie has made history with the biggest worldwide opening ever for an animated title at $377.5M. Of that plumb pazzo result, an estimated $172.8M comes from the international box office. Wahoo!, indeed. The movie just took off with…