Illumination Entertainment has only been around for eight years (with five films produced thus far), and yet it’s already making box-office history.

Deadline (among others) recently reported that Minions managed to sustain its upward momentum and blaze a trail towards an expected, but no less impressive, milestone. Yes, you heard that right: Minions has officially become Illumination Entertainment’s first film to strike $1 billion at the global box office ($321 million domestic and $682 million internationally). With this accomplishment, Minions now holds the title of  highest-grossing animated film of 2015 and the highest-grossing animated film not produced by Disney. This comes just days after the film already broke a prior record for being the third highest-grossing animated film of all time.

As with our article reporting Minions’ rise to the top, the reactions to this news are sure to vary wildly across the board. Minions is by no means a critical darling (54% on Rotten Tomatoes), but the titular characters were already, above all else, a pop culture phenomenon. Universal and Illumination certainly recognized this fact, so all they needed to do was simply jump on the earliest available opportunity to promote the heck out of this film. Needless to say, it worked.

Say what you will about Illumination (and I’ve said some myself), but they are definitely the masters of an effective marketing campaign and, to that end, this achievement was only to be expected.

Minions is currently in theaters. See Morgan’s review of the film here. Listen to the Animation Addicts’ review and discussion about the film here.

What do you think? Are you surprised by this news at all?

Edited by: Hannah Wilkes