Despicable Me becomes highest-grossing animated franchise of all time

It's overtaken DreamWorks Animation series Shrek in a pretty big way

The Despicable Me franchise has overcome Shrek to become the highest-grossing animated franchise of all time.

A successful weekend for the third film in the series from animation studio Illumination has seen the franchise reach a $3.528b total globally topping Shrek's accumulated takings of $3.51b (£2.68b), a total which includes the haul of spinoff Puss In Boots.

Despicable Me's takings include all three films as well as the hugely-successful 2015 prequel-of-sorts which saw the yellow Minions get their own film - it currently sits as the second highest-grossing animated film of all time.

According to Deadline, the first film, released in 2010, earned $546m (£418m) while its Oscar-nominated sequel - which arrived in 2013 - amassed $607.7m (£465.6m) upping the global haul to $976m (£748m).

Minions became the biggest animated film of last year while Despicable Me 3 has outdone the previous two films with worldwide takings of $879.5 (£674m). The franchise will only build on this with the third film going strong across the world and a Minions 2 in the works - Universal can breathe easy.

Despicable Me features the voice talents of Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig and Sandra Bullock.

The other three highest-grossing animated franchises below Despicable Me and Shrek is Ice Age, Madagascar and Pixar series Toy Story.