Can you picture a Minion striking Curry’s famed “night, night” pose after a clutch play?
Illumination pitched a wild concept to Topps: fuse the mischievous Minions with elite NBA and MLB talent for a playful, limited‑edition card set.
The result is a buzz‑worthy line that has become one of the most coveted inserts in recent Topps Chrome Baseball and Basketball releases, turning stars like Curry, Judge and Gilgeous‑Alexander into tiny yellow mischief‑makers.
Over 100 limited‑run Minionfractor cards—mostly NBA—have cleared $1,000 each, with five‑of‑a‑kind Curry and Gilgeous‑Alexander parallels fetching north of $50,000; a one‑of‑one Flagg Garbage Pail Kids card recently sold for $288,000, a record for the brand.
In my view, the goofy crossover adds real buzz to the hobby. “We’ve been experimenting with non‑sports properties crossing into sports, and they just make for some really interesting, creative, fun cards,” said Clay Luraschi of Fanatics Collectibles.
An Illumination insider, speaking off the record, said the studio approached Topps with a shortlist that included Jokic, who appeared in a Denver Nuggets game dressed as Gru before starring in a Despicable Me 4 promo video.
“We’re always trying to surprise the audience,” the source explained, noting the collectibles market’s surge and Topps’s strong performance as a catalyst for a bold partnership.
“Usually studios push a pure promotional pack with obvious movie ties, no scarcity. We wanted something different—cards that collectors take seriously and that become part of the broader conversation on collectibility,” the source added.
Predictably, Topps has taken note of the soaring secondary‑market prices, and Illumination is watching closely.
“This is a market test to see if a bigger collaboration with Topps could happen,” the source said, amazed by values that far exceed the $10,000 mark they initially imagined, proving clever IP mashups can pay off.
Topps balances mashups carefully, avoiding inserts that could alienate collectors; a recent win was inserting classic Disney icons like Mickey, Goofy and Donald into MLB uniforms across several releases.
“The property has to click with sports, be globally recognized and fun,” Luraschi explained, adding it should feel both serious and tongue‑in‑cheek, capable of telling a story that endures year after year.
For the MLB set, Topps mirrored player poses—Judge, Soto and Skenes—on their original cards, while the NBA inserts took a more whimsical visual approach.
“The matchup context must make sense,” Luraschi noted, stressing that while the fantasy doesn’t need to be realistic, it should fit within the Minions universe.
He added, “Behind each card is a imagined story of how a Minion ends up on the court channeling Curry’s persona—visualize it and it’s hilarious, so the concept has to click.”