If you're heading to the cinemas this weekend, there's a chance you'll encounter a group of strapping young lads in their finest attire congregating in the foyer.
Their movie of choice? Minions: The Rise of Gru.
It's a viral trend that's infiltrated cinemas across the world, causing box office records to be broken and some businesses to even refuse entry to movie goers wearing suits.
So what the heck is going on? Grab a banana as we break it down.
Wait, there's another Minions movie?
Yep.
If you can believe it, the Minions multiverse began over a decade ago with the 2010 release of Despicable Me about a reformed super-villain called Gru and his yellow Minions.
Since then, audiences have been spoiled with Despicable Me 2 (2013) and Despicable Me 3 (2017), with Despicable Me 4 slated for a 2024 release.
Between all of that, fans were treated to the spin-off prequel Minions in 2015.
Now, Gru's villain origin story has hit cinemas with Minions: The Rise of Gru.
So why are teens wearing suits to the cinema?
To be ironic, young men on TikTok have started donning formal attire to sessions of the latest Minions flick to give, in their words, this piece of high art cinema the respect it deserves.
The trend has been dubbed #GentleMinions, a play on "gentlemen", and has quickly gone viral.
TikToks show everything from groups cheering wildly during the film to getting up and creating impromptu mosh pits in front of the projector screen.
Cultural critics have been trying to figure just why young people have grabbed onto Minions with such dapper ferocity.
But as one person points out, the Despicable Me franchise is part of these TikTok teens' childhoods.
And with Facebook groups like Minion Memes for Moms attracting 20,000 members, it's not surprising teens want to reclaim some of their youth on their own terms – this time using their own money.
Didn't I hear some places are banning the suits?
You sure did.
Due to the rowdy – and understandably confusing – behaviour sparked by the #GentleMinions movement, some cinemas have started refusing "any group of guests in formal attire" entry to screenings of Minions: The Rise of Gru due to "recent disturbances."
In the UK, Mallard Cinema manager Daniel Phillips-Smith told the BBC: "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, and of course the children have been in tears."
But some cinemas have embraced the boost in sales and are running dedicated #GentleMinion screenings.
As for here in Australia, major cinema franchises have confirmed they aren't banning the trend yet, as long as movie goers don't ruin the fun for everyone else.
This is great for Minions, right?
It's absolutely bananas.
Minions: The Rise of Gru actually opened in Australia a week before the United States, debuting at $3.7 million.
But in the states, it smashed the record for the most successful film to be released over the July 4 weekend, earning $187 million during its opening weekend.
That means it surpassed the previous record-holder of Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011), which brought in a 4-day total of $170 million.
So occasional cinema disturbances aside, you can see why Universal Pictures is grateful to the #GentleMinions.
But not every meme translates into money
The memeification of Minions: The Rise of Gru isn't the only recent film to be tied to a running gag.
Marvel's Morbius, starring Jared Leto, initially tanked at the box office, earning only $109 million in the US when it had a budget of $110 million, as Forbes reports.
But while Morbius was a flop, the memes were not.
"It's Morbin' time" became a popular phrase across the Internet, despite not featuring anywhere in the script.
The Internet is a powerful tool, so Sony saw the sheer scale memes as a sign of popularity and brought Morbius back into theaters.
But the popularity behind the Morbius memes is because Morbius is, objectively, a bad film.
What separates Minions from Morbius is the fact that people are actually buying tickets to the former, surging the franchise to new heights and creating a phenomenon that marketing agencies will struggle and fail to recreate.
But if Hollywood gives the people what they want, this might not be the last time we see a cinema full of suited up kids.
