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Minions & Monsters Nearly Revealed How The Characters Were Born, And The Scrapped Idea Sounds Wild

Minions & Monsters Nearly Revealed How The Characters Were Born, And The Scrapped Idea Sounds Wild

Each Minion movie takes things expands the universe a little bit further, but the newest film, Minions & Monsters, follows entirely new characters. This time we have James, who just wants to make movies and has no interest in villainy. I was a little caught off guard as every minion – as we understood it – has one purpose: to serve a villain. But the more I thought about it, the more fascinated about it I became. So I wasn’t surprised when the newest film Minions & Monsters took top banana during its first weekend at the box office.

But while one of the biggest questions has been answered (namely, how they became Gru’s minions) there are still many burning questions fans are left speculating over. Moviegoers have been desperately wanting to know how the beloved characters are born. Minions & Monsters nearly gave us this answer with a scrapped idea which totally bloews my mind with how wild it sounds. Director (and the voice of every minion) Pierre Coffin sat down with Polygon to spill the tea:

That’s a question we’ve all asked ourselves at a highly creative level. It went really high up and then, ultimately, we thought that we would never answer that question. But we sort of hinted at it when we did the first Minion movie. In the opening credits, they start off as little yellow cells.

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StubHub’s CEO is helping fund the biggest ticket scalpers <div id="zephr-anchor"><div class="duet--article--article-body-component"><p class="duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01">Expanding technology and resale options were supposed to make obtaining tickets to sporting events easier than ever, but <a href="https://www.sbnation.com/nba/1117061/ticket-price-gouging-online-nba-finals-world-cup-stanleycup">instead it’s become a hellscape</a>. Scalpers dominate online platforms, ensuring that desirable events sell out immediately, causing local sports fans to miss out unless they’re willing to pay exorbitant prices for fear of missing out.</p></div><div class="duet--article--article-body-component"><p class="duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01">It’s now been revealed that one of the biggest stakeholders in online ticket sales is helping fund the very people ruining ticket sales for sports fans. <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/investigates/stubhub-marketplace-mass-scalper-sec-filings-9.7265230">An investigative report by the CBC uncovered information inside StubHub’s IPO filing from last November</a>, which revealed that CEO Eric Baker also runs a hedge fund which scalps tickets, and provides funding to scalpers.</p></div><div class="duet--article--article-body-component"><p class="duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01">When asked for comment, StubHub reiterated its public-facing comment that the company doesn’t own or hold any tickets itself.</p></div><div class="duet--article--article-body-component"><blockquote class="duet--article--blockquote _1bij9g70 _1mt21p09"><p class="duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1bij9g78 _1mt21p01">“StubHub does not own, possess, or sell tickets. We are a technology platform that connects independent buyers and sellers. (Think: eBay).”</p></blockquote></div><div class="duet--article--article-body-component"><p class="duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01">This comment conveniently ignores that some of these “independent buyers” are being directly aided by the CEO of the company. Of course, the devil is in the details. Nobody is accusing StubHub of owning the tickets for their own sale, but it’s now clear that the top of the company is heavily invested in inflating its own marketplace. We discussed this fundamental issue late in the NBA and NHL playoffs, with how reselling sites like StubHub have a vested interest in scalpers, because their percentage-based resale fees are better for the company when event tickets soar — while also giving them multiple bites of the apple if the tickets are sold multiple times on the platform.</p></div><div class="duet--article--article-body-component"><p class="duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01">Baker, the StubHub CEO, reportedly is a large stakeholder in “Andro Capital,” a hedge fund based out of Los Angeles, which offers loan funding to large scale ticket purchasing operates which have the express purpose of buying tickets and reselling them for profit on platforms like StubHub.</p></div><div class="duet--article--article-body-component"><p class="duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01"><a href="https://www.bizprofile.net/ca/los-angeles/andro-capital-general-partner">Filing documents for Andro Capital show the hedge fund </a>was formed in March of 2024, 18 months before StubHub announced it was going public in an IPO filing. In that filing to the SEC StubHub revealed its deep relationship with Andro, including this key detail from 2024:</p></div><div class="duet--article--article-body-component"><blockquote class="duet--article--blockquote _1bij9g70 _1mt21p09"><p class="duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1bij9g78 _1mt21p01">On April 15, 2024, as part of our ongoing relationship with Andro, we entered into an agreement with the Andro Fund under which we agreed to cover certain costs incurred by Andro in connection with ticket management services.</p></blockquote></div><div class="duet--article--article-body-component"><p class="duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01">StubHub was not required to divulge the totality of this agreement with Andro Fund, but having the company “cover certain costs incurred” raises mammoth red flags. That theoretically means that the hedge fund could have waived reselling feels on the seller side of the transaction, thereby incentivizing the fund to scalping operations. In short, the business flow <em>could</em> look like this:</p></div><div class="duet--article--block-placement tswlmh1 tswlmh0 duet--article--article-body-component"><ol class="duet--article--ordered-list _1upudxki h5c6220 _1mt21p01"><li class="h5c6221"><span class="duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup">A scalping group has capital to buy massive amounts of tickets</span></li><li class="h5c6221"><span class="duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup">Rather than invest themselves, it’s better to invest their money in Andro to do the buying, because they have an agreement with StubHub to cover some of their expenses</span></li><li class="h5c6221"><span class="duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup">Andro profits off the inflated ticket sales</span></li><li class="h5c6221"><span class="duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup">StubHub benefits through massively inflated prices, which they profit off through buyer fees</span></li></ol></div><div class="duet--article--article-body-component"><p class="duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01">That’s not all. The filing also lists “Colloquy LLC,” a subsidiary of Andro Capital, which serves as a loan servicing arm for tickets sellers — offering financing to mass buy tickets, which they resell on StubHub directly.</p></div><div class="duet--article--article-body-component"><blockquote class="duet--article--blockquote _1bij9g70 _1mt21p09"><p class="duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1bij9g78 _1mt21p01">Under the terms of the Program Agreement, we refer certain of our sellers to Colloquy for the opportunity to enter into separate financing arrangements with Colloquy. Under such arrangements, it is anticipated that Colloquy may provide short-term financing to sellers based on those sellers’ existing and/or future expected proceeds generated through ticket sales on our platform.</p></blockquote></div><div class="duet--article--article-body-component"><p class="duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01">Not only is Andro Capital its own ticket buyer, but it also runs an arm of the company that gives funding to sellers, based on referrals from StubHub itself. Essentially, the entire scalping business is fully intertwined with StubHub, from the CEO being involved in a large-scale seller AND offering funding to sellers.</p></div><div class="duet--article--article-body-component"><p class="duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01">The only person who loses out in this whole transaction are sports fans. The consumers who use the platform are being held hostage by ticket prices, which fundamentally wouldn’t be inflated to the same level without the input of StubHub. This is all legal from the SEC’s perspective due to a lack of oversight when it comes to hedge funds. There are few other industries in which a publicly traded company could be legally allowed to price fix to the level that is happening on StubHub, while trying to pretend with its public face that it’s just a platform for fans to sell to other fans.</p></div><div class="duet--article--article-body-component"><p class="duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01">There should be an immediate investigation into ticket pricing, as well as outlawing the kinds of predatory practices designed to inflate the wealth of StubHub and Andro Capital at the expense of consumers.</p></div></div> #StubHubs #CEO #helping #fund #biggest #ticket #scalpers

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