Raven Queen's Origins

Raven Queen's Origins is a 2025 American computer-animated comedy film produced by Illumination Entertainment and distributed by Universal Pictures. It is the spin-off prequel and the third installment overall in the Raven Queen franchise. Directed by Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda, written by Brian Lynch, and produced by Chris Meledandri and Janet Healy, the film stars the voices of Meg Donnelly as the Raven Queen as a Kid Timothée Chalamet, Ariana Grande, Jayden Bartels, Sadie Sink, Kristin Chenoweth, Jim Carrey, Kristen Strewart, Amanda Seyfried, and is narrated by Geoffrey Rush.

Raven Queen's Origins debuted in London on June 12, 2025, and was released in the United States on July 11. The film received mixed reviews from critics, but was a solid success at the box office earning $1.159 billion worldwide, and became the fifth highest-grossing film of 2015, the 10th hiest-grossing film of all time, and the second highest-grossing animated film of all time during its theatrical run. A sequel, Raven Queen's Origins 2: Revenge of the Queen, is scheduled to be released in July 2030.

Plot
Plot is Similar to Minions and Puss in Boots.

Cast

 * Meg Donnelly as Young Raven Queen
 * Timothée Chalmaet as Jared Charming
 * Ariana Grande as Young Madeline Hatter
 * Jayden Bartels as Young Cerise Hood
 * Sadie Sink as Young Kitty Cheshire
 * Kristin Chenoweth as Evil Queen
 * Jim Carrey as Mad Hatter
 * Kristen Stewart as Red
 * Amanda Seyfried as Cheshire Cat
 * Kevin Hart as Jack Spicer
 * Jennifer Aniston as Jill Spicer
 * Max Charles as Walter Nelson
 * Amy Sedaris as Madge Nelson
 * Jennifer Saunders as Queen Elizabeth II
 * Katy Milson as Tina Nelson
 * Adian Gallagher as Walter Nelson, Jr.
 * Chris Miller as Little Boy Blue, Friar Miller, Prison Guard, Manuel and Rafael
 * Hiroyuki Sanada as Dumo

Development
Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment first announced in July 2022, that the Raven Queen as a kid from the franchise would get their own spin-off film, scheduled for a 2024 release. Brian Lynch was asked to write the film's screenplay, due to his prior work writing for the theme park ride Despicable Me Minion Mayhem. Pierre Coffin became director again with newcomer Kyle Balda as the co-director, marking the first film in the franchise where Chris Renaud is not a director. Eric Guillon returned for the film but was not an art director, as he was the character and production designer for the film.

Casting
In February 2023, Sandra Bullock joined the cast to voice Scarlet Overkill, with Jon Hamm joining two months later as her husband Herb Overkill. In March 2015, Allison Janney was reported to cast as Madge Nelson. Pierre Coffin, the film's director, reprised his role as the Minions. This is one of the films in the franchise in which Coffin is the sole actor and the first film where Chris Renaud doesn't serve as a director, but an executive producer. Kyle Balda served as an co-director along with Coffin. Jennifer Saunders was cast in order to voice Queen Elizabeth II

Music
The official soundtrack for the film was released on July 10, 2015, by Back Lot Music. The soundtrack also features the film's original music, composed by Heitor Pereira.

Marketing
Universal's parent company, Comcast, and its partners spent $593 million in advertisements and promotion, across all media and platforms. Universal spent a total of $26.1 million on television advertisements for the film. Universal described the promotional campaign as the "largest and most comprehensive" in its history.

McDonald's released a promotion for a toy set offered in their Happy Meals for the film between June and July 2025. A series of comics and graphic novels based on the film is being published by Titan Comics. The series includes four comic book issues, two digest collections, two hardcover editions, and a paperback collection. Drawn by Didier Ah-koon and Renaud Collin, the series launched in June, with the release of the first issue of the Minions comic book and the first digest collection. In April, Pantone announced the creation of a new official Pantone color, 'Minion Yellow', in partnership with Illumination Entertainment.

Theatrical
Minions debuted at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on June 11, 2015, followed by a premiere on June 27, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. Minions was originally going to be released on December 19, 2014, but in September 2013, the film was pushed back to July 10, 2015 due to Universal's satisfaction with the successful release of Despicable Me 2 (2013) and desire to exploit fully the merchandising potential of Minions.

Home media
Universal Pictures Home Entertainment released Minions on Blu-ray and DVD on December 8, 2015. The film is accompanied by three short films titled Cro Minion, Competition, and Binky Nelson Unpacified. Upon its first week of release on home media in the U.S., the film topped the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert chart, which tracks overall disc sales, as well as the dedicated Blu-ray sales chart with 63% of unit sales coming from Blu-ray.

Box office
Minions earned $336 million in the United States and Canada and $823.4 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $1.159 billion, making it the fifth highest-grossing film of 2015, the 10th highest-grossing film of all time, and the second highest-grossing animated film of all time. On August 28, 2015, Minions passed the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office, becoming the third animated film to cross that milestone after Toy Story 3 (2010) and Frozen (2013). Deadline Hollywood calculated the net profit of the film to be $502.34 million, accounting for production budgets, marketing, talent participations, and other costs, with box office grosses, and ancillary revenues from home media, placing it second on their list of 2015's "Most Valuable Blockbusters".

Released alongside The Gallows and Self/less on July 10, 2015, Minions made $46 million on its first day, including $6.2 million from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut with $115.2 million from 4,301 theaters. Its second weekend saw the box office drop by 57% to $50.2 million, and Minions grossed another $22 million the following weekend. Minions completed its theatrical run in the United States and Canada on December 17, 2015.

Worldwide, Minions debuted in 44 markets on June 18, 2015, and later a total of 66 countries by July 11. The film earned $12.5 million in its opening weekend from four countries, and in its second, Minions made $37.6 million in 10 markets. The film's top international markets were the United Kingdom ($73.1 million), China ($63.47 million), and Germany ($63.46 million).

Critical response
Its critical consensus reads, "The Minions' brightly colored brand of gibberish-fueled insanity stretches to feature length in their self-titled Despicable Me spinoff, with uneven but often hilarious results." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.

Jesse Hassenger of The A.V. Club gave the film a C, saying "Minions has idiosyncratic roots, but it's a franchise play all the way. Finally, even 5-year-olds have their own movie that mechanically cashes in on something they loved when they were younger". Michael O'Sullivan of The Washington Post gave the film two and a half stars out of four, saying, "I, too, once enjoyed the Minions, in the small doses that they came in. But the extra-strength Minions is, for better or for worse, too much of a good thing". Brian Truitt of USA Today gave the film two and a half stars out of four, saying, "Brian Lynch's screenplay features a series of amusing sight gags and physical comedy that mostly hits; watching the Minions play polo while riding Corgis is an exercise in cuteness". Tom Russo of The Boston Globe gave the film two stars out of four, saying, "Impressive as it is that the filmmakers get so much comedic mileage out of their characters' half-intelligible prattling, the conventional dialogue is bafflingly flat". Manohla Dargis of The New York Times said, "While Minions explores nominally new narrative ground, it folds neatly into a series that now includes two features, various shorts, books, video games, sheet music and a theme park attraction. So, you know, different but also the same".

Tom Long of The Detroit News gave the film a B, saying "Minions is every bit as cute as it's supposed to be, a happily empty-headed animated frolic that rarely pauses to take a breath". Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film two stars out of four, saying, "It's not whether this prequel can mint money; that's a given. The questions is: Can the minions carry a movie all by their mischievous mini-selves? 'Fraid not". Kerry Lengel of The Arizona Republic gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of five, saying, "Despite the dizzying pace of carefully calibrated incongruities, Minions somehow never generates more than the occasional chuckle". Christopher Orr of The Atlantic said, "There's plenty of high-velocity comic inanity on display to keep kids happily diverted. But the movie's major flaw is an extension of its own premise: Search as they may, the minions never find a villain worthy of their subservience". Liam Lacey of The Globe and Mail gave the film two stars out of four, saying, "With its episodic stream of slapstick gags, Minions has moments of piquant absurdity, but mostly its shrill-but-cutesy anarchy works as a visual sugar rush for the preschool set".

Sequel
A sequel, titled Raven Queen's Origins 2: Revenge of the Queen, will be directed by Kyle Balda, with Brad Ableson and Jonathan del Val co-directing it, and is scheduled to be released on July 5, 2030.