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Despicable Me 4 is a 2024 American animated comedy film produced by Universal Pictures and Illumination, and distributed by Universal. It serves as the sequel to Despicable Me 3 (2017), the fourth main installment, and the sixth overall installment in the Despicable Me franchise. The film was directed by Chris Renaud, co-directed by Patrick Delage (in his feature directorial debut), produced by Chris Meledandri and Brett Hoffman, and written by Mike White and Ken Daurio. It stars the voices of Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Pierre Coffin, Joey King, Miranda Cosgrove, Steve Coogan, Sofía Vergara, Stephen Colbert, Renaud, Madison Polan, Dana Gaier, Chloe Fineman, and Will Ferrell. In the film, Gru (Carell) and his family are forced to relocate to a safe house to hide from Maxime Le Mal (Ferrell), an old rival of Gru who seeks revenge with his girlfriend Valentina (Vergara). At the same time, one of the new neighbors, Poppy Prescott (King) is intent on returning Gru to villainy.
Development on a fourth Despicable Me film began in September 2017. It was officially confirmed in February 2022, with Renaud, Delage, and White attached as director, co-director, and writer, respectively. Production was underway by June 2022. Most of the main voice cast was announced in January 2024, with Hoffman and Daurio revealed as co-producer and co-writer, respectively. Heitor Pereira and Pharrell Williams returned from previous installments to compose the score and write original songs and themes, respectively.
Despicable Me 4 premiered at the Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City on June 9, 2024. It was theatrically released in Australia on June 20 and in the United States on July 3. The film received mixed reviews from critics and has grossed $229.6 million worldwide.
Plot[edit]
Undercover Anti-Villain League (AVL) agent Felonious Gru attends a class reunion at his former high school Lycée Pas Bon where he reunites with Maxime Le Mal, a former classmate of his who has a feud with Gru for stealing his talent show act. During the ceremony, Maxime reveals he has enhanced himself with cockroach body parts to make himself overpowered and so he can conquer the world, but Gru has him arrested with the help of the AVL. Sometime later, helped by his girlfriend Valentina, Maxime escapes prison and reveals his new invention, a gun that transforms people into cockroach hybrids, which he plans to use specifically on Gru's infant son Gru Jr., who despises his father.
Days later, Silas Ramsbottom visits the Gru household to inform them of Maxime's escape, and the AVL will have to relocate the Gru family to a safe house in another town under new identities. Meanwhile, most of the Minions are taken in by the AVL, where Silas selects five of them, Tim, Dave, Gus, Jerry, and Mel to be augmented with super-powers under a new initiative called the Megaminions, but the initiative is called off after the group causes great damage in a nearby city.
In their new well-off residential town, Gru and his family meet their new neighbors, the Prescotts, and their teenage daughter Poppy. Poppy, an aspiring villain, recognizes Gru from his former career as a villain and threatens to blow his cover unless he helps her and three Minions, along with Gru Jr., pull a heist to steal Lycée Pas Bon's honey badger mascot, Lenny. The team successfully steals Lenny from the school, unaware that Lenny's collar contains a tracker. The school's elderly principal Übelschlecht identifies Gru via security camera footage and contacts Maxime to inform him about Gru's whereabouts using Lenny's collar.
The next day, while Gru and Lucy are away at tennis practice with the Prescotts, Principal Übelschlecht visits the safe house to interrogate the girls about Gru's whereabouts. Gru and Lucy rush back home after being called by Margo and they fight Übelschlecht. Lucy also contacts the AVL who in turn calls the Megaminions out of retirement to stop Maxime. In the havoc, however, Gru Jr. leaves the house and is spotted by Maxime and Valentina who proceed to kidnap him.
With the help of Poppy, Gru meets up with Maxime at a nearby building where he reveals he has transformed Gru Jr. into a human-cockroach hybrid and fights him off with a mind-controlled Gru Jr., however, Gru's words to his son manage to break Gru Jr. free from his brainwashing state and attack Maxime instead. Maxime falls to the ground where he is further squashed by the Megaminions and the aid of many animals and insects, who arrive in turn to arrest him.
Gru and his family return to their original home, where Dr. Nefario reverses Gru Jr.'s transformation. Gru later visits Maxime in prison to talk and settle their differences. The pair then performs "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" at an AVL prison for the prisoners, featuring villains from the past including Vector, Mr. Perkins, El Macho, Balthazar Bratt, Scarlet and Herb Overkill, respectively), and the remaining members of the Vicious 6, while Poppy is shown to have enrolled in Lycée Pas Bon.
Voice cast[edit]
- Steve Carell as Felonious Gru, a former supervillain turned Anti-Villain League agent; who is Margo, Edith, and Agnes' adopted father, the biological father of Gru Jr., and Lucy's husband, who poses as "Chet Cunningham"
- Kristen Wiig as Lucy Wilde, an Anti-Villain League agent, Gru's wife and adoptive mother to Margo, Edith, and Agnes, and Gru Jr.'s biological mother, who poses as "Blanche Cunningham"