When it comes to the Despicable Me franchise, the word “villain” is somewhat relative. In the first two films, the protagonist Gru (Steve Carell) is also a supervillain, while the breakout characters the Minions, his henchman, were not only stars of a hugely popular spinoff movie, but are prominent on the clothes, lunchboxes and backpacks of seemingly half the small children in America.
Now, a year after those Minions starred in a movie that made over $1 billion at the worldwide box office, another Despicable Me movie is on the way, with a new relative of Carell’s semi-reformed villain Gru and another new villain for him to face. And this villain just so happens to have a voice associated with a very different cartoon franchise.
Trey Parker, co-creator of the long-running Comedy Central series South Park will give a voice performance in Despicable Me 3 as the brand new antagonist character, Universal announced Wednesday at the CinemaCon event in Las Vegas, as reported by The Wrap.
Parker’s character is named Balthazar Bratt, described as “a former ‘80s child star who has been pissed off at the world ever since he hit puberty and his show was cancelled. He hates being mocked, and that fact drives him to plot global domination.” Bratt will fit into the plot along with “Drew,” the aforementioned relative to Gru. It turns out, Drew is the established bad guy’s long-lost identical twin brother, who is known for his long flowing hair.
Parker is no stranger to the voice or feature film game. Having created and voiced several characters in South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, Parker also starred in BASEketball the year before and later released Team America: World Police in 2004, all along with partner Matt Stone. Parker has mostly avoided feature films in the years since, concentrating instead on continuing the South Park TV series which just wrapped season 19, and winning all the Tony Awards for the Book of Mormon Broadway musical. In fact, Despicable Me 3 will mark Parker’s first-ever voice performance in a film that he hasn’t directed himself.
The return is welcome, as Parker has proven over the years to be a major voice talent and a very versatile one, too. It’s not hard to imagine him doing something hilarious with the character of a keytar-toting washed-up ‘80s rock star.
Despicable Me 3 is set for release June 30, 2017.
Source: The Wrap
