With Universal and Illumination Entertainment’s Hop opening April 1, I was able to sit down with Christopher Meledandri (CEO of Illumination) earlier today 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.

Over the past year, Illumination has been developing a number of projects and towards the end of my interview, I asked Meledandri about each of them.  So if you’re curious about the status of Curious George, Tim Burton’s stop-motion animation adaptation of The Addams Family, Ricky Gervais’ Flanimals, The Lorax, and the Despicable Me sequel, hit the jump: