I would say it was the directors. We have to give credit to the directors for this, because in the script, we just said, "Gru's Minions do this or do that" in the initial draft. And then, they came up with the characters' design and the philosophical concept of the Minions. And then, we started writing to that. We have to give a lot of credit to them.
Cinco PaulWe have never pushed it far enough to know, but we decided 47 percent was the right percentage. You can quote us on that. It's very mathematical.
Cinco PaulKen has three kids. I have three kids. The first movie was basically the story of our lives. Every man is kind of a villain until he then has kids. And then, they soften us up.
Cinco PaulWhen we wrote that scene about the Sleepy Kittens where he's reading the storybook to the kids, it's like we've had to read these stupid books to our kids, and we all want to just tell our kids, "This is really bad. Don't you know that? Can't you see that?"
Cinco PaulI remember when my daughter was twelve, suddenly a boy started hanging out in front of our house after school. It was this kid, Justin. My office at the time was right in the front, so I just looked out the window. I couldn't write. I couldn't concentrate. I was like, "What are you doing? What do you expect to achieve by standing in front of my house with my daughter inside?" I hated that kid so much.
Cinco PaulBut the world of Despicable Me is such a cartoony world. It is much more Looney Tunes than I would say the Pixar world or those movies. We can get away with a little more, although I know some people responded negatively to the Iron Maiden beat in the first movie where it looks like Edith.
Cinco Paul