HOLLYWOOD — In a transaction that industry insiders are calling “legally permissible but spiritually concerning,” former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli has reportedly acquired the sole existing copy of a deleted scene from the 2015 animated film Minions, a forty-second sequence so profane that Universal Pictures buried it in a vault and, according to sources, salted the earth above it.
The scene, which has never been screened publicly and will now never be screened publicly, is said to depict the character Bob discovering that his banana has been taken. What follows, per the one editor brave enough to describe it, “is not language a yellow Tic Tac with arms should be able to produce.” The editor declined further comment and has since changed careers.
Shkreli, who previously purchased the only copy of the Wu-Tang Clan album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin for a reported $2 million, confirmed the acquisition in a statement that was itself partially redacted. “People keep asking me why I buy the one-of-one stuff,” he said. “It’s simple. I like owning a feeling that the rest of you are not allowed to have. In this case the feeling is a small creature losing its mind over fruit.”
Sources close to the deal indicate the price was “an undisclosed amount and one banana,” the latter of which Shkreli is said to have provided himself, peeled, as a gesture of good faith. Universal has not commented on whether the banana was ceremonial or simply an oversight in the contract drafting.
Animation historians remain divided. “Look, every studio has cutting-room material that doesn’t fit the brand,” said one preservationist who asked not to be named. “But there’s a difference between a scene that’s too sad for a kids’ movie and a scene that made the colorists request a chaplain. This was the second kind.”
When pressed on whether the public would ever see the footage, Shkreli was unequivocal. “No,” he said. “You can describe it to your friends. You can imagine it. You can lie awake at night wondering exactly which words a Minion knows. But you will not watch it. That is the entire point of money.”
At press time, the banana was reported to be doing fine.