Steve Carrell has made the role of the villainous Gru a pop culture icon in the Despicable Me franchise, so imagine my surprise when none other than Denver Nuggets superstar Nikola Jokic popped up in a hilarious promotional spot for the newest film.
Did not see that coming. Never mind how naturally funny Jokic comes across on camera — he actually sells this. Nailing the comedy in a therapy session is no small feat. I guess all Jokic knows is doing sh*t big. In the commercial, the minions are after him because they think he’s actually Gru. Thanks to some tricky editing, we have ourselves a little live-action/animation hybrid in the vein of Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
You’d have to plump up his torso with a heavy-set suit, but I now need a live-action adaptation of Despicable Me starring Jokic. How can we make this happen? Is he able to fit a shoot in between his busy basketball schedule and his endearing leisure time in his native Serbia? Money talks! We have proof of concept from this trailer that it actually works.
Now, I’d imagine the budget would balloon if you had to build out the rest of the cast with stars, and finagle all those minions in there in post-production. I wonder if they’d go the CGI route, or use motion capture a la the Planet of the Apes franchise.
Whatever the case, cut Jokic in as a producer, give him a back-end deal, and dangle it in front of him. I need Jokic as Gru on the silver screen in live-action yesterday, and I didn’t know this until right now.
Seriously though, how cool is Nikola Jokic? The man is probably about to win his third regular-season MVP in four years. He’s coming off an NBA Finals MVP run, and has to be the most consistently unstoppable offensive player in the sport when you factor in his skill set and size. It’s straight-up ridiculous that Jokic has nearly averaged a triple-double over the past two seasons. His game is stupid good. Toss in some comedic chops on top of it, and you can see why “Joker” is so endearing to so many fans.
PS, it’s impressive that Despicable Me continues to roll on, somehow threads the needle of not making the minions the most annoying characters in the history of cinema — my opinion, I’m sure some feel differently — and keeps the stories relatively fresh. I’ve just learned that White Lotus creator/School of Rock screenwriter and actor Mike White co-wrote Despicable Me 4. Gonna have to check this one out now for sure. That’s not till July 3, but thankfully we have Ryan Gosling’s The Fall Guy coming right on the heels of his excellent SNL hosting gig, and Furiosa in May. Should be a fun next few months at the movies.
