Suited Minions fans face UK cinema ban after rowdy scenes
LONDON (AFP) - Some young British fans, wearing suits to showings of the new Minions movie as part of a social media trend, have been turned away after similarly attired groups engaged in rowdy behaviour.
"Due to a small number of incidents in our cinemas over the weekend, we have had to restrict access in some circumstances," a spokesman for the Odeon chain, Britain's largest by market share, told AFP on Tuesday (July 5).
Other cinemagoers accused teenagers following the TikTok #gentleminions trend of making noise and throwing things during screenings of Minions: The Rise Of Gru.
Other cinemas have also complained of behaviour of the young fans.
The Mallard, the only cinema on the Channel Island of Guernsey, reported "stunningly bad behaviour", including vandalism.
@bill.hirst ?#fyp #minions #banana ♬ original sound - billh
The attire is an homage to the movie's supervillain Felonious Gru, and is backed by studio Universal Pictures, which wrote on Twitter: "To everyone showing up to @Minions in suits: We see you and we love you."
to everyone showing up to @Minions in suits: we see you and we love you. ?
— Universal Pictures (@UniversalPics) July 1, 2022
"It's been absolutely heartbreaking. We've had families who won't even go back into the screen when we've tried to sort it out, families leaving before the film has even started," manager Daniel Phillips-Smith told the BBC.
"The children have been in tears."
But the Vue cinema chain said the smartly-dressed fans were still welcome.
The Minions franchise began with Despicable Me (2010), which followed the story of supervillain-gone-soft Gru and his babbling overall-clad army of small, yellow pill-shaped creatures.
It was followed by two sequels in 2013 and 2017 as well as two spin-off prequels, Minions (2015) and Minions: The Rise Of Gru, which opened last week.
The latest instalment in the animated Despicable Me franchise crushed the competition at the North American box office in its four-day opening weekend, generating $125.1 million (S$176 million) in ticket sales.
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