The man behind the box-office hit explains why there are no female creatures in the film

The breakout stars of the Despicable Me films have turned into a box-office draw all on their own with Minions easily becoming the year’s biggest animated hit.

Pierre Coffin: Me and my Minions Read more

But, given their popularity, questions have arisen about the curious lack of female minions. Pierre Coffin, who created the characters, has revealed his reasoning. “Seeing how dumb and stupid they often are,” he said to the Wrap. “I just couldn’t imagine Minions being girls.”

He didn’t explain how the creatures reproduce however. Coffin, who voices the three main characters, told the Guardian last month that their language comes from a mixture of sources. “It’s gibberish. It’s a mixture of all the languages of the world and it’s about finding a particular magical rhythm and melody that makes the nonsense make sense.”

Minions has followed in the footsteps of smash hit sequel Despicable Me 2 and has already made more than $620m (£398m) worldwide and is already the fourth biggest film of the year. As well as Coffin, the film features the voices of Jon Hamm and Sandra Bullock. With such box-office success, a sequel wouldn’t be surprising, though there has been no official announcement on a sequel yet.