After almost a month at the top of Netflix’s charts, Tiger King has been dethroned. So, what’s taken the top spot? Is it a shiny new prestige series? Another fascinatingly weird documentary? How about a topical movie about a pandemic? Nope, the current King of Netflix is 2010’s Despicable Me, which is #1 on both the overall Top 10 and the Top 10 films list.
So, why has a decade-old animated pic risen to the top of the charts? Well, it was added to the service just yesterday, so in a way, it’s fresh for Netflix subscribers. Perhaps more saliently, with schools around the world having now been shut for a number of weeks, parents are eager to find a way to distract bored children. The lockdown has been in place for so long now that all the kid-friendly films current available may well have been exhausted. So, when Despicable Me becomes available for streaming, viewers will rush to it.
Beyond that, the continued popularity of the Minions probably has something to do with it. The pint-size yellow mischief-makers debuted in this film before going on to appear on every conceivable form of merchandising and becoming the stereotypical boomer meme template.
Sadly for Despicable Me and Minions fans though, the rest of the series is currently unavailable to stream as part of a subscription. If you really want the full saga, you can rent or buy them all from Amazon Prime, YouTube and Google Play. But hey, if the first movie has been such a wild hit, then Universal should be eager to sell the streaming rights to the others to Netflix for a princely sum. And as Netflix is reportedly now worth more than Disney, they can certainly afford it.
The next installment in the franchise, Minions: The Rise of Gru was set for release on July 3rd, 2020, but has been delayed a whole year until July 2nd, 2021 as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic. So, if you need a Minions fix right this second, Netflix is the place to be.
