When Will ‘Minions: The Rise of Gru’ Start Streaming? Will It Be on Peacock, Netflix, Both?

Ever since the debut of the original “Despicable Me” film a dozen years ago, the yellow, begoggled, pill-shaped henchmen known as the Minions have been delighting audiences young and old. On Friday, July 1, the Gru’s crew’s latest big-screen adventure “Minions: The Rise of Gru” hits theaters and it is already doing big business.

On Thursday, the computer-animated film secured the largest box office preview performance for any animated film since the start of the pandemic. The movie’s $10.8 million on its opening night reportedly puts it on track to hit the higher end of industry expectations of $70 to $90 million over the holiday weekend. If “Rise of Gru” hits those numbers, it would dwarf Pixar’s recent release “Lightyear,” which underperformed accounting for just $50.58 million domestically on its opening weekend in mid-June.

Related: When Will ‘Lightyear’ Be Available to Stream on Disney+? And Why Is Everyone So Confused by this Movie?

As a franchise, the five Despicable me films (including “Rise of Gru”) have collectively grossed roughly $4 billion globally, so no matter what you think of those chaotic, gibberish-talking balls of destruction, they certainly have an audience. So, whether you are a lifelong Minionaholic or just need something new to plop your kids down in front of, you might be wondering when and where “Minions: The Rise of Gru” will be streaming. So let’s dive into those details.

The “Despicable Me” franchise is distributed by Universal Pictures, the big-screen arm of NBCUniversal. That means that following an announcement last December, the film will arrive on Peacock as early as 45 days following its theatrical release. That would mean that “Rise of Gru” would be eligible to hit streaming on Monday, Aug. 15.

Minions: The Rise of Gru

June 29, 2022

A fanboy of a supervillain supergroup known as the Vicious 6, Gru hatches a plan to become evil enough to join them, with the backup of his followers, the Minions.

While NBCU and Peacock have been aggressive when bringing films to the streaming platform — including day-and-date releases like Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson’s “Marry Me” earlier this year — this one might be a little different. Given the challenges that the movie theater industry has dealt with since attempting to open back up following its pandemic shutdown, it is difficult to know exactly what to expect from the box office.

However, if the last installment in the “Despicable Me” franchise — 2017’s “Despicable Me 3” is any indication, this one is likely to have legs for a while. The film also opened on Friday, June 30 ahead of a long Fourth of July weekend and went on to gross $1.034 billion globally. The movie also remained on more than 1,200 screens domestically through Sept. 10 and didn’t exit theaters completely until Dec. 21.

Despicable Me Movies

The Despicable Me franchise centers on Gru, a super-villain (who later becomes a dad and superhero); his yellow-coloured Minions; and his three orphan girls, Margo, Edith and Agnes.

While both the existence of Peacock and COVID would make that type of run practically impossible for “Rise of Gru,” it would make sense that the film will hang onto its cinema exclusivity for longer than the minimum month and a half. Labor Day is three weeks after the 45-day window expires, and it would make sense for Universal to keep this potentially billion-dollar property in theaters through that weekend, so while we could see “Minions: The Rise of Gru” on Peacock as early as Aug. 15, I would think that we are more likely to have to wait until sometime after Labor Day, Sept. 5; 66 days following its theatrical release.

This would follow the schedule of another recently successful Universal animated hit, “The Bad Guys.” That film debuted in theaters on April 22 and just arrived on Peacock on July 1; 70 days later. The film was a surprise hit for Universal, especially as concerns around the Omicron variant of COVID were keeping people at home much more than they are today. Nonetheless, to date, “The Bad Guys” has brought in nearly $243 million dollars worldwide; a solid showing, but a far cry from what Universal expects “Rise of Gru” to do.

Related: How to Watch ‘The Bad Guys’ on Apple TV, Roku, Fire TV, and Mobile

So, if “The Bad Guys” is any indication, it is would make sense that Peacock will have to wait to bring the latest “Despicable Me” movie to the platform. But, that’s not the only thing to consider in this streaming equation.

What makes this windowing even more important is that even though “Rise of Gru” is an NBCU film and Peacock is the NBCU streamer, once the movie arrives on the platform, it won’t live there in perpetuity. Instead, thanks to a deal announced last summer, Peacock will exclusively stream the film for four months once it arrives on the platform. Then, Netflix will have its own exclusivity window for 10 months, before Peacock gets it back for the remaining four months of its initial Pay-1 window.

So, if “Minions: The Rise of Gru” sticks in theaters through Labor Day and hits Peacock on the very next day — Sept. 6 — that would mean that it would arrive on Netflix on Jan. 6, 2023 before returning to the NBCU streamer on Nov. 6.