With Universal and Illumination Entertainment’s Hop opening this weekend, I was able to sit down with Christopher Meledandri (CEO of Illumination) for an extended interview.  As most of you know, Illumination’s first movie, Despicable Me, went on to earn over five hundred and twenty seven million dollars at the worldwide box office.  Not bad for a film that had no build in audience.  As you might imagine, they’re hard at work on the sequel.

During my extended interview, Meledandri talked about the success of Despicable Me, the “it’s so fluffy!” line, how Hop came together and getting the cast, are there any Easter Eggs in Illumination films (like Pixar does it), his CinemaCon panel with George Lucas, James Cameron and Jeffrey Katzenberg, and he also talks about Illumination’s future projects which include Curious George, Tim Burton’s stop-motion animation adaptation of The Addams Family, Ricky Gervais’ Flanimals, and The Lorax.  Hit the jump to watch: