Times change. One billboard at AMC Star Great Lakes doesn't. And fans love it

Outside the AMC Star Great Lakes 25 in Auburn Hills, a series of billboards promote the release of new and upcoming movies.

There's the Timothée Chalamet-starring family hit "Wonka," next month's Bob Marley biopic "One Love" and the upcoming horror fantasy "Imaginary," about a stuffed bear who's not so cuddly. All pristine, colorful, sharp examples of the Hollywood machine, forever marching forward.

Then there's one billboard for a movie that's neither new or upcoming. Its time has come and gone. Its colors are faded, and it has been beaten up by the weather. But its characters still smile, frozen in time, as the world moves on around them.

It's for the movie "Megamind," which was released in November 2010. It's an animated film about a supervillain and his superhero nemesis, voiced by Will Ferrell and Brad Pitt, respectively. It also features the voices of Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, J.K. Simmons and Ben Stiller and was a hit when it was released, grossing $321 million worldwide.

Then that was it: no sequel, no spinoff, and outside of a few Gen-Z memes, not much of a "cultural footprint," as kids these days like to say.

Except at the AMC Great Lakes, outside the Great Lakes Crossing Outlets shopping mall, where its billboard remains, for whatever reason, permanently counting down to Nov. 5, 2010. A manager at the theater directed questions about the "Megamind" billboard's confounding presence toward a rep at AMC's corporate offices, who did not respond to requests for comment.

Through the years

Thousands of movies have come through the 25-year-old theater since "Megamind's" release, and in that time the average movie ticket price has jumped up from $7.89 to $10.53. The billboard's history is tough to trace; it was likely once covered up by another advertisement, but it's been out in the open for at least the last several years, according to web searches and Reddit posts celebrating it.

The billboard has survived presidencies, tech advancements, social trends and a pandemic. It predates Spotify's launch in the U.S., which wouldn't arrive until the following summer. At the time, Ellen DeGeneres was still a judge on "American Idol," and "Idol" was pulling more than 20 million viewers an episode. The Lions were 6-10 that year, and Matthew Stafford, in his second season as the team's quarterback, missed most of the season due to a shoulder injury. An NFC Championship appearance wasn't even in the realm of possibility.

Our world has flipped sideways more than once since 2010, and the "Megamind" billboard has seen it all, where from its perch its two characters, Megamind and Metro Man, look southeast over the nearby Top Golf facility and toward the Stellantis North American Headquarters and tech facility — it was Chrysler World Headquarters back when the billboard went up — about six miles down I-75, which is fully visible on a clear day.

For some, the "Megamind" billboard offers a tiny piece of comfort in an everchanging world, a warm blanket of nostalgia from a simpler time, a time when "the superhero movie will never be the same," according to the ad copy on the billboard. (Superhero movies have certainly undergone significant changes since 2010, though "Megamind's" role in that shift is negligible at best.)

Adam Zill thought it was odd a few years ago when he noticed the billboard outside the theater, where it's positioned on a large wall just south of the main entrance. The 24-year-old aerospace welder, who lives in Ortonville, remembered "Megamind" from grade school and had fond memories of it, but he thought it was hilarious the billboard was still up. "I noticed they updated all the other advertisements, every other one got changed, but that one never did," he says. "It was very weird."

Over time, it became an ongoing joke with his friends — the billboard that was preserved in amber — and in October, when visiting the theater to see "Five Nights at Freddy's," he made a TikTok about it.

"If anyone goes to the IMAX theater at Great Lakes Crossing in Michigan, you know the sacred sign," he says, his tone animated, as he flips his camera around to reveal the "Megamind" billboard. "They change every other (billboard) along this strip, but they never change this one, because it's f---ing art and they know not to disrespect it."

Zill's video gained traction on the social media site, picking up more than half-million views and more than 1,100 comments, with others sharing their similar feelings about the "Megamind" billboard.

"Everytime my friend and I go to the Rainforest Cafe we also check for the Megamind poster lmao," one user wrote. "Oh yeah it's an icon," wrote another. Another said every time they go to the mall, "we have to make sure it's still there."

"The sacred sign" has a cult following.

Forget me not

In "Megamind," Will Ferrell voices the title character, a blue-skinned alien supergenius with an oversize cranium — that cranium is peeling off on the billboard — who is raised in Metro City in the shadow of the Superman-like Metro Man (Brad Pitt), his adversary. It's a comedic supervillain origin story that had the misfortune of being released five months after the extremely similarly-themed "Despicable Me"; in the movie, Megamind even has a sidekick whom he calls "Minion."

"Despicable Me" went on to launch two hugely successful franchises — there have been two "Minions" movies, and "Despicable Me 4" is due out July 3 — and "Megamind," well, has a billboard outside Great Lakes Crossing.

While theater brass is hesitant to comment, an employee who was not authorized to speak on the record said the sign is broken and is an expensive fix, and there are no immediate plans to repair it.

So it remains, a blip in the Matrix, a constant in an unreliable reality. When it's eventually changed out, another ad will go up on its place, promoting another movie, and the world will soldier on.

But the "Megamind" billboard is special. It's got character and it's got history, even if that history is completely random. "Megamind" might not have been built to last, but somehow, in this instance, it did.

In his review of the movie at the time of its release, The News' Tom Long called the movie "the latest completely enjoyable, if inherently lightweight, 3-D animated probable blockbuster."

Even at the time, he was questioning its legs and its cultural stickiness.

"But you have to wonder whether anyone will even remember 'Megamind' in a few years," Long wrote. "Really, you'll enjoy it. And then you'll forget it."

It turns out the universe, or maybe Megamind himself, had other plans.

agraham@detroitnews.com