‘A female Minion would be the beginning of the end’: Pierre Coffin on creepy memes, decoding Minionese and farting bananas

Pierre Coffin, the director of the Minions franchise, told The Guardian that a female Minion would be 'the beginning of the end'. Universal wanted to please women, but Coffin considers it tokenistic. An idea of an island with apparently female Minions was explored but not developed. In his view, female Minions would look identical to males and they do not reproduce – they simply exist.

The upcoming film 'Minions & Monsters' is set decades before 'Minions: The Rise of Gru', during the era when cinema became an industry, with nods to directors like Fritz Lang and Michael Curtiz. The film includes homages to Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, and Charlie Chaplin, and suggests that Minions caused chaos in classic films, such as killing one of the Eight Samurai or disrupting the editing of 'Breathless'.

Coffin explained that Minionese has no linguistic structure but relies on melody and tricks to convey meaning. He performs the voices for all territories except China, spending three weeks recording at home. Regarding merchandise, he asked to stop receiving it but still keeps a fart blaster that smells like bananas. He finds Minion memes both funny and creepy, but appreciates their role in pop culture.