Monsters Inc. remains one of Disney/Pixar’s most successful movies of all time, having the highest box office success until Ratatouille came along. Not only did it do well financially, but it has also become a timeless classic that children in the early 2000s and early 2020s can enjoy all the same. The film was premiered on October 28th, 2001, but production for it began as early as 1994.

Mike and Sulley. Image from: https://screencrush.com/monsters-inc-tv-series/

The Original Plot, Monsters

As ideas were being developed for the movie, Pete Docter had a whole different direction for the main characters and the plotline. The story was still about Monsters who scare kids as their job, but Sulley was nowhere near what we know him as today. He began as a character named Johnson, who was a clumsy, not-so-scary monster. He started off a lot like Mike, admiring the real scarers at his workplace. Instead of Randall, the original plot had Ned, the top scarer at Monsters Inc. Johnson is not respected at work, even being threatened to be fired by his boss.

Boo, known better as Mary in the original story, has more of a background. We get to know her family, her age, and she ends up scaring Johnson more than the other way around. Mary thinks Johnson is really her brother trying to play tricks on her. She follows him back into the Monster world, still denying that he is really a monster. Once she realizes the predicament she’s in, she makes herself a disguise to try to escape. Mary ends up staying with Johnson, helping him scare other kids. Ned becomes suspicious, and finds out about Mary. The cops arrest Johnson, but in the end Mary saves him by having him enter her door into the human world, where he lives with her forever.

From Monsters to Monsters Inc.

The original story was workshopped, ran past different animators and producers, and eventually the addition of Mike and the character development of Sulley was what changed the story completely. Boo’s age was also changed frequently, ultimately settling on 3 years old.

When the director Pete Docter and animators came together to pitch title ideas, long-time Disney animator Joe Grant was the one to suggest Monsters Inc. It’s been said that he got the idea from the movie Murder Inc., a film about an organized crime group in the early 1900s.

The Cast of Monsters Inc.

When casting for the film, Pete Docter’s first choice for Sulley was Bill Murray. He auditioned, screen-tested, and went through the whole process… right up until Docter couldn’t even get a hold of him. The miscommunication of Pete being unable to contact him and Bill not following up, meant the role was passed along to someone else. John Goodman came in as Sulley, and exceeded all expectations.

“[Sulley’s] a scary lookin’ guy, and his breath ain’t too hot either.”

— John Goodman

Back when Toy Story was being made, Billy Crystal was offered the role of Buzz Lightyear, before Tim Allen ever was. He screen-tested for it, but ended up turning down the role. Pixar wasn’t established yet and he didn’t know where it would take him. But after seeing the success of Toy Story, Billy Crystal was excited to be part of a Pixar movie. Though his character wasn’t quite a Woody or a Buzz, he said Mike Wazowski is one of his favourite roles he’s ever played.

Boo was voiced by Mary Gibbs, Rob Gibbs (an animator’s) daughter. She was 2.5 years old, so naturally the recording process was not traditional. Instead of having her stand at a booth all day, they followed her around and let her do what she wanted. They recorded her reacting to things, making different sounds, and spliced it all together in the end.

Steve Buscemi was the voice of Randall Boggs, one of the villains of the story. Steve really enjoyed his time as Randall, saying their lizard-like ways were very similar. He also thought despite the character being a villain, he looked cool. Buscemi and Goodman have been in 5 other movies together too.

“Randall will do anything to work his way to the top.”

— Steve Buscemi

The Animation Process of Monsters Inc.

The animation began with a story reel, a series of hand-drawn scenes to pitch. Then they do a layout, a 3D computer graphic structure of the setting, the characters, and how they want everything to look. Then they work on the face, adding expressions, and finally the story.

During the early versions of testing the look of the animation style, Mike started off fairly similar looking except he had no arms, and used his legs for gesturing. Sulley started out as a more boxy shape, with a more muted purple tone, and prominent eyebrows. Sulley also had tentacles., but those were removed later on due to the movement being too distracting. One of the more well known facts about Sulley is that he also started out with having glasses.

The Challenges with the Animation

The biggest challenge with the animation of the film was Sulley’s hair. At first, you had to have an animator animate every single piece of fur, and you had to make sure it looked like it was moving naturally. Steve Jobs says this was one of the biggest challenges to make sure it looked natural. To avoid this difficulty, they created a technology where all they had to do was animate the character, and place the hair on top, and it would naturally move on its own. They used a sample of a hair ball, and used that all over Sulley. This purple character is an example of what that hairball alone looked like. They ran Sulley through several tests, including an obstacle course, to make sure everything worked in every situation.

Another challenge was animated 23 billion doors, thousands on the screen at a time. They would create one door, a flat rectangle that resembled paper, and they would duplicate it hundreds of times and render it in the end to look like doors.

The Film’s Release

Monsters Inc. was released in the US on November 2nd, 2001. It was a box office success, and was a great follow up after the Toy Story movies and A Bug’s Life. The Pixar short that was released with Monsters Inc. was For the Birds, which won Best Short Animated Film at the Academy Awards. The film won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for “If I Didn’t Have You”. This was Randy Newman’s first Oscar.

The film was then released on home video on September 17th, 2002. Along with the home release, the VHS also featured a brand new short film, Mike’s New Car. Since the release of Monster’s Inc., Pixar has also released a prequel titled Monsters University in 2013 and a TV series called Monsters at Work in 2021.

Reference list:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0VtxJgm_V8&t=344s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cukd2EUXZX8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM0FlVaxYNA

https://www.pixar.com/feature-films/monsters-inc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsters,_Inc.

https://gamerant.com/monsters-inc-facts-trivia/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UUjQcvVMw4

https://www.tvovermind.com/time-bill-murray-offered-role-sulley-monsters-inc/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXf8e_YL0kE