How do Minions reproduce? Minions & Monsters director answers 3 extremely specific questions

The internet's most burning Minion mysteries, answered

Minions & Monsters is out now, and the newest movie in the Despicable Me and Minions franchise redefines what can be done with the yellow, overall-wearing, gibberish-speaking troublemakers. Early in the movie, it's made clear that, in addition to the single group of Minions we’ve been watching for the six other films, there are actually many different tribes of Minions, expanding the possibilities for the future of the franchise. Also, it had previously been established that the destiny of all Minions is to follow the biggest, baddest leader they can find, yet Minions & Monsters stars James, an artistic Minion with no interest in villainy who eventually decides he just wants to make movies. Then he, along with the fellow Minions in his tribe, become stars of Hollywood’s silent era of filmmaking.

Despite the expanded definition of Minions established in the new movie, there are still some big questions that remain about the Minions, many of which have been speculated upon in the franchise’s online fanbase for more than a decade. So, when Polygon got a chance to talk to director Pierre Coffin — who also directed four previous movies in the franchise and voices all the Minions — we had to hit him with the three most burning questions the internet has about the Minions.

1 How do Minions reproduce? A deleted scene revealed...

The 2015 prequel Minions opens with a sequence showing three Minions evolving from single-celled organisms to beings with flippers and eyes (or in Stuart’s case, just one eye). From there, emerging from offscreen, we see hundreds of Minions join the other three.

While this explains a bit about the backstory of the Minions, it still avoids "the birds and the bees" of it all. Were those many Minions the children of the first three, or were they just elsewhere before they were seen on camera? Regardless, where did the very first Minions come from? Do Minions reproduce? And if they do, since they all appear to be male, how?

“That’s a question we've all asked ourselves at a highly creative level,” Coffin tells Polygon. “It went really high up and then, ultimately, we thought that we would never answer that question. But we sort of hinted at it when we did the first Minion movie. In the opening credits, they start off as little yellow cells.”

Then Coffin reveals a scrapped concept from Minions & Monsters, one that might still make it into a future installment:

“I had another idea for the opening credits of Minions & Monsters," he says. "I wanted it to start with the Big Bang and then out of the Big Bang came darkness and multiple little yellow dots. Then we'd follow these yellow dots going from planet to planet and then eventually come to this big blue thing that was kind of separating, so they helped the separation of the moon and what would become the Earth. Then those little yellow dots would come on Earth and populate the Earth. Basically, we were trying to say that the origin of this whole thing actually is the Minions. Then it was deemed slightly off-subject with the type of movie we wanted to make. Maybe we'll do it for some other Minion movie in the future.”

2 Can a Minion die? Finally a definitive answer

Throughout the Minions and Despicable Me movies, we’ve seen Minions blown up, run over, hanged, and launched into space with a ship or a spacesuit, yet they never seem to actually perish from the physical violence that befalls them. They also seem to be completely ageless, which is why “Can Minions die?” is a popular online query.

“No,” says Coffin definitively. “We tried multiple times, but they seem to come back alive every time for some reason. So I'm guessing they can't die.”

3 What were the Minions doing from 1939 until 1945? You know where this is going...

Prior to working for Gru, the Minions pledged their loyalty to the most despicable characters throughout history, both fictional, like Dracula, and real-life “big bosses” like an Egyptian pharaoh and Napoleon Bonaparte. So if the Minions continued this trend into the 1940s, it would have meant they were working for Adolf Hitler during World War II, right?

The Minions movie deliberately sidesteps the issue by revealing that the Minions conveniently hid out in a cave from 1812 until 1968. However, Minions & Monsters establishes that there are multiple tribes of Minions, and, aside from James, they still seek out the most evil boss they can. This means the question “Did any Minions work for Hitler?” is back in play, which is why we put it to Coffin.

“I knew you were going to ask me that question. Shame on you,” Coffin laughs. Then he goes on to say, “I think they were in that cave.”

“But this movie establishes that there are multiple tribes of Minions,” I counter.

“I was trying to avoid the answer,” admits Coffin, who says he’s fully aware that this is a big question online. Then he makes clear that the Minions we meet in Minions & Monsters also didn’t work for Hitler.

“So the Minions that we know from Minions 1 were stuck in the cave. These ones, I don't know where they were, but they were not part of the Big History,” says Coffin, putting the matter to rest until the next Minions movie.

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Minions & Monsters is in theaters now.