Is the World Ready for a Megamind Sequel?

Cast your mind back exactly one decade ago, to the practically-idyllic-by-comparison year of 2010, specifically the landscape of superhero movies at the time. Iron Man & Batman were releasing the second films in what would become genre redefining trilogies, that would kick off the much beloved Marvel Cinematic Universe... and the often questionable, "Worlds of DC" Cinematic Universe, respectively. Well there was another tale told that year of super powers and themes of heroism that I feel didn't receive the love it so rightfully deserved... and no, I'm not talking about The Last Airbender.

I am of course talking about the film referenced in the title of this article: Megamind. The story of a genius super villain struggling to cope after the loss of his invulnerable nemesis, it's a relatively fresh take as far as Hollywood goes. Add to that the fact that this is a well executed and fun exploration of that idea, by a cast of big names, at a point before the term "superhero fatigue" had even been invented, and it's hard to believe this movie wasn't more successful.

This was on my mind when I decided to re-watch it last week. I thought "well it has all this stuff going for it and I remember liking it myself, but that was years ago and no one talks about this movie anymore, so it's probably one of Dreamworks' weaker entries, like Bee Movie, except without all the memes". But to my delight, it wasn't.

It brilliantly portrays an archetypical Superman and supporting cast (which as we've seen recently, not everyone can get that right) in a fun and interesting way (rousing theme music, crossing Superman with Elvis, playing up the boredom and frustration of the Lois Lane figure, Roxanne). It stars Will Ferrell, Brad Pitt, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, and David Cross; as well as having Ben Stiller as an executive producer, Guillermo del Toro as a creative consultant, and Hans Zimmer co-composing the music. Those are all ingredients of not just a successful superhero parody film, but also many of the actual successful Hollywood movies we've seen both before and since.

So to move onto the question posited by the title of this piece: Is The World Ready for a Megamind Sequel? I think the answer is yes. And here's why:

As you may or may not have noticed, Hollywood has become more than a little enamored with superhero movies; arguably infested with them. After more than twenty MCU films, and however many DC is counting, people are without a doubt familiar with capes and spandex; so much so that even highly unconventional deconstructions of powered people (The Boys, Umbrella Academy, etc.) have proven popular. Megamind could build off of that, tell a story that wouldn't have worked ten years ago, something that builds on the general public's more advanced knowledge of superheroes, as well as the already established world of Metro City.

You might be sat reading this thinking "well if no one saw it, why would they do another one, and not just make something new instead", well here's why. When I brought this film up to people recently, no one had a bad word to say about it, and from a brief scan on the internet, there is something of a cult following growing online. Add to that, the fact that it technically made money ($130M budget, $321.8M gross, even by the old movie math adage of needing to earn double the budget to breakeven, that's $61.8M in profit), and we know how Hollywood feels about taking a gamble on an original IP when there's a much safer sequel option on the table.

Plus, the star-studded team of creatives that were involved in the first film are all still huge names today (arguably more so in some cases), with a monumental amount of sway in the industry and now an extra decade of experience and contacts to draw upon. If even half those people are interested in returning to the franchise, the studio would be mad not to bite their hands off.

I think that just about covers why I believe the world is not only ready, but sort of subconsciously demanding a continuation of the Megamind mythos with the way it's movie-going choices have crafted the cultural zeitgeist. If you've stuck around and read this far down, it's probably because you also have an intense love of Megamind... that, or you're the poor sod editing this article (Hi Jack). However if it's the former, then you might be aware that Megamind (2010) technically has a sequel, in the form of the 2011 short film, Megamind: The Button of Doom, released on the DVD/Blu-ray of the original film; you should be able to find it online somewhere, just Google it.

If this article touched you in any way, or at the very least provoked some kind of feelings about Megamind, I encourage you to comment below. It's easy, just sign in with your Google/Facebook account or something like that. Also, we don't have a like/dislike feature on the site (at the time of writing), so if you wouldn't mind just commenting something like "you did a good job or whatever", so that I can fulfill my quota of positive affirmation, that would be lovely, and I feel it's what Megamind would want you to do.

Written by Kyle J.