Minions & Monsters Hits Peacock Today: The Best-Reviewed Despicable Me Movie Is Also the Lowest-Grossing One. Is It Too Scary for Kids, What Does Peacock Cost and Why I Think Streaming Is Where It Finally Wins

Here’s the detail that made me stop scrolling this week: the Despicable Me movie that critics like best is the one that earned the least. Not just a little less, either. Minions & Monsters ended up about $15 million behind the original 2010 film, and that film came out in a very different era for animated movies. Today the new one lands on Peacock, and I think that’s where the story gets interesting.

I haven’t watched it yet, and I want to say that early so you know what you’re getting. This isn’t a review. It’s a guide built from Peacock’s announcements, box office trackers and the reviews, plus my own read on what the numbers are trying to tell us. I’ve split it into reels, like a little film strip: when and where, the two scoreboards, a scare check for parents, and my verdict.

If you only have thirty seconds, the short version is this: it’s a 90-minute PG movie, it’s streaming on Peacock starting today, and I’d call it a smart pick for a pre-Halloween family night, with one thing to check first if your kid is sensitive to monsters.

When does Minions & Monsters come out on Peacock, and what does Peacock cost?

It starts streaming today, Wednesday, Oct. 28, and Peacock is its exclusive streaming home. It opened in U.S. theaters on July 1, according to Variety and NBC, which puts the gap between the big screen and your couch at just under four months. Peacock’s own blog notes it’s also available to buy on digital, 4K disc, Blu-ray and DVD if you’d rather own it, and ComingSoon reports that the digital release came early, on Aug. 11.

One small detail I like: Peacock’s blog says the movie introduces a Minion named Ed who can’t speak but communicates with the human characters through Minionese sign language. For a franchise built on gibberish, that’s a thoughtful touch.

Now the money question. Peacock raised all its prices on Aug. 18, its fourth increase in four years, so here is what a month costs today. I couldn’t find anything from Peacock saying which plan carries this particular movie, and one price guide notes that the cheapest tier has a much smaller library, so check the title page before you pay.

Prices as reported by TVLine, ConsumerAffairs and CableTV.com after the Aug. 18, 2026 increase. Existing subscribers see the new price on their next billing date on or after Sept. 17, and annual subscribers keep their current price until renewal.

Is Minions & Monsters good? Critics gave it the franchise’s best score, and ticket buyers gave it the franchise’s smallest total

This is the part I find most fun. Most movies pick a lane: the critics love it and the crowds do too, or neither does. This one split the room, so I built two scoreboards. The first is what critics said.

Rotten Tomatoes’ consensus calls it the franchise’s “most roundly enjoyable entry yet,” and reviewers describe an affectionate send-up of old moviemaking, so packed with visual gags and film references that repeat viewings feel necessary. Variety noted nods to classics from Citizen Kane to The Blob. Audiences were warmer than their ticket purchases suggest, but cooler than the critics: an A- CinemaScore, and a Rotten Tomatoes audience score of about 75% from more than 1,000 verified ratings. That’s a 15-point gap, and Animated Views points out that it ranks as the third-lowest audience score among the seven films.

Now the second scoreboard, which is where the story turns.

Why the gap? The opening is the clue. Its five-day U.S. debut was about $61 million, the lowest in the franchise and, per Dark Horizons relaying Variety, about half of what Minions: The Rise of Gru and Despicable Me 4 opened to. Variety’s read was that the brand may be overexploited. TheWrap added that the America 250 holiday and slightly weaker audience scores played a part, and noted that Toy Story 5 was right behind it that weekend.

But here’s what I think gets lost in the doom headlines. According to The Numbers, the film’s domestic total ended up almost five times its biggest weekend, which is a healthy multiplier. Worldwide it earned about 6.2 times its reported $85 million budget, and TheWrap said at the time that it would still be a hit for Universal. So it didn’t flop in the way people mean when they say flop. It just came up short against a franchise whose last films nearly or fully crossed a billion dollars. That’s my read, not a studio statement: this is a movie that disappointed against its own family tree.

Is Minions & Monsters too scary for kids? What the PG rating says and my three-question check

The official answer is the rating: PG, for violence and action, language, and rude and macabre humor. The movie’s whole premise is that the Minions release monsters into the world, and Wikipedia’s plot summary describes a monster named Irene who wreaks havoc and chases a character through the streets. Peacock’s own bonus content calls her a blob monster. I couldn’t find a detailed scene-by-scene guide yet, so I’m not going to pretend I can tell you which moment will bother which child. What I can give you is the three-question check I’d use before pressing play.

Do you need to watch the other Despicable Me movies first?

Variety describes it as a prequel set in 1920s Hollywood, and nothing I found says you need the earlier films to follow it. Peacock is also adding Minions, Despicable Me and Despicable Me 2 alongside it, so a mini-marathon is on the table if you want one. My advice is simple: start with the new one, since it’s the best-reviewed of the lot, and let your family decide whether it earns a night with the older ones. If you have a film fan in the house, the 1920s setting is a good excuse to talk about how movies were made then.

That setting is also why the photo at the top of this page shows a hand-cranked Bell & Howell 2709. According to the Science Museum Group, by 1919 nearly all the camera equipment used to make movies in Hollywood came from that company, and the 2709 shot silent classics like Ben-Hur and The Gold Rush, per the American Society of Cinematographers. It’s the kind of machine the Minions would be fumbling around in the movie’s Hollywood. I can’t tell you it appears in the film, so please read it as a visual nod, not a still.

Minions & Monsters questions, answered fast

Should you press play tonight? My verdict

This is a verdict from the outside, since I haven’t seen the movie, and it rests on the reviews, the audience scores and the numbers above.

My verdict: watch it. A movie that critics rated this highly, with an A- from the people who showed up, deserved a bigger audience than it got, and streaming is the best place for it to find one, because the only price is 90 minutes.