John Powell is being playfully self-deprecating about his ambitious, maximalist approach. This is Powell at the top of his game—pushing creative boundaries and delivering a score that honors Hollywood's Golden Age while serving the chaotic energy of the Minions.
Sources say this was a rare in-person scoring session on the Sony lot, with 80 musicians including 30 violinists alone. In an industry where most scoring has moved overseas for tax credits, seeing that many bodies in one room during a three-week marathon is practically unheard of.
Powell told Hollywood Reporter on June 26, 2026: 'Overly emotional, overwrought, overplayed, overwritten. Just over. Everything was over.' He also admitted to cranking the score 'to a level that often today you would be told to go and get therapy.' The film releases July 1, 2026.
Powell basically threw out every modern scoring rulebook and built an orchestral cathedral of excess—and somehow got Pierre Coffin to sign off on it. Either this is a masterpiece or an expensive experiment we'll be roasting for years.
John Powell just did something that would get any other composer in today's climate roasted by critics: he made a movie score so over-the-top, so aggressively maximalist, that he openly admits it's the cinematic equivalent of a therapy red flag. In an exclusive interview with The Hollywood Reporter published Thursday, the acclaimed composer—known for Shrek and How to Train Your Dragon—pulled back the curtain on his work for Minions & Monsters, Illumination's latest entry in the Despicable Me franchise.
And let's just say Powell did not hold back when describing what he created. "Overly emotional, overwrought, overplayed, overwritten. Just over.
Everything was over," Powell said with a laugh, per THR. "It helps elicits laughs [but] would be very dangerous if I was doing a serious film." The composer also admitted to taking things to extremes that would raise eyebrows in 2026's more restrained scoring landscape. "I just kind of cranked it right up to a level that often today you would be told to go and get therapy," he said.
Here's the context: This was Powell's first Minions movie, which also marked the first feature in the Despicable Me franchise not scored by regular composer Heitor Pereira. Director Pierre Coffin reached out directly to bring Powell on board. The process involved Powell flying to Paris to meet with Coffin at Illumination's offices, spotting the film, and then emerging a week later with musical cues.
The pivotal moment came when Powell played his ideas for Coffin in person—a risky move in an industry that increasingly handles such sessions over Zoom or phone calls. "It's a very dangerous moment," Powell explained. "It can go so horribly wrong...
He could have been saying one thing and his body language would have told me how uncomfortable he was if it wasn't really working for him." Coffin, thankfully, loved what he heard. Minions & Monsters places the pint-sized yellow troublemakers in 1920s Hollywood attempting to make a creature feature. According to Powell, it's "wall-to-wall music"—and that gave him license to go absolutely wild with influences.
He name-dropped Franz Waxman (Bride of Frankenstein, Sunset Boulevard), Max Steiner (King Kong, Gone with the Wind), Carl Stalling (Looney Tunes), Bernard Hermann (Psycho), and John Williams (Star Wars) as inspirations. Oh, and he also threw in some Alexander Borodin and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky for good measure. The recording process itself was a spectacle.
In early April—less than three months before the July 1 release—Powell found himself on Sony's Barbara Streisand Scoring Stage commanding an army of musicians. For roughly three weeks, the stage held upwards of 80 musicians (including 30 violinists alone), with extra brass players brought in on some days and a 60-piece choir appearing on others. This kind of large-scale orchestral recording has become increasingly rare as Hollywood scoring has migrated overseas for tax credits and cost savings.
Powell acknowledged that this particular score could only have been recorded in Los Angeles, where "talented movie musicians can be found in one place." When asked if he hoped reviewers would use the word "indulgent," Powell didn't hesitate: "I hope everybody who reviews the score uses the word 'indulgent' because by God, it was." The director gave him explicit permission to go there. Powell recalled Coffin saying, "I want you to do that thing"—and when Powell asked if he was sure, Coffin confirmed: "Oh yeah, absolutely. It's not like any other Minions movie." We'll see if audiences agree come July 1.
