Monsters, Inc.

Monsters, Inc.
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Pete Docter
Produced by	Darla K. Anderson
Screenplay by	Andrew Stanton Daniel Gerson
Story by	Pete Docter Jill Culton Jeff Pidgeon Ralph Eggleston
Starring	Billy Crystal John Goodman Steve Buscemi James Coburn Mary Gibbs Jennifer Tilly
Music by	Randy Newman
Editing by	Jim Stewart
Studio	Pixar
Distributed by	Walt Disney Pictures
Release date(s)	November 2, 2001 (2001-11-02)
Running time	92 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$115 million
Box office	$526,366,597

Monsters, Inc. is a 2001 American computer-animated comedy film and the fourth feature-length film produced by Pixar. It was directed by Pete Docter, co-directed by Lee Unkrich and David Silverman, and written by Jill Culton, Peter Docter, Ralph Eggleston, Dan Gerson, Jeff Pidgeon, Rhett Reese, Jonathan Roberts, and Andrew Stanton. The starring voices are John Goodman and Billy Crystal as Sulley and Mike, two monsters who work at a power plant that powers the monster world with children's screams, Mary Gibbs as Boo, a little girl who enters the monster world, Steve Buscemi as Randall, a rival monster, Jennifer Tilly as Celia, Mike's girlfriend, and James Coburn as Mr. Waternoose, the plant's owner.

The film was released to theatres by Walt Disney Pictures in the United States on November 2, 2001, in Australia on December 26, 2001, and in the United Kingdom on February 8, 2002. It was a commercial and critical success, grossing over $525,366,597 worldwide. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes also reported extremely positive reviews with a 95% approval rating. The film is scheduled for a 3D re-release on January 18, 2013. A prequel, Monsters University, is scheduled for a June 21, 2013 release.

Plot

Monstropolis is a city populated entirely by monsters. The city is powered through the screams of children gathered by "Monsters, Inc."; the monsters use millions of doors that, when powered on the "scare floor", connect to rooms of human children around the world to scare them at night and collect their scream energy. James "Sulley" Sullivan is one of the top scarers for the company aided by his humorous friend Mike Wazowski, but finds himself in competition with rival Randall Boggs. Monsters, Inc.'s CEO, Henry J. Waternoose III, respects Sulley, but worries that children have become desensitized, their doors shredded when they no longer become scared, and they are not collecting enough energy to meet the city's needs.

One night after a shift, Sulley finds a door still loaded on the factory floor. When he checks the room, he finds no one there, but later finds that the human child from that room, unfazed by Sulley's appearance and calling him "Kitty", followed him into the monster world, an event that if discovered by others, would create a panic and lockdown by the Child Detection Agency (CDA). Sulley tries to return the child through the door but finds Randall there, leaving the room and sending the door into storage. Instead, Sulley sneaks out with the child, meeting up with Mike, and returning to his apartment.

They spend the night watching over the child, whom Sulley comes to care for and call "Boo". They find that her laughter creates power surges that threaten to expose them to the CDA, and try to pacify her. The next day, they put Boo in a homemade monster disguise and return to the factory, hoping to sneak her home. As Mike tries to retrieve Boo's door, Boo wanders off, and Sulley is forced to look for her. Together, they discover a hidden section of the factory, where Randall has been kidnapping children and extracting scream energy from them using a scream machine. Sulley and Mike tell Waternoose everything, but Waternoose takes Boo away and throws Sulley and Mike through a door to the Himalayas, because Waternoose is part of Randall's plan.

The two have a falling out, Mike believing Sulley allowed Boo to ruin their chances to be the top scarers, while Sulley worries for Boo's safety. Realizing there's a nearby village, Sulley race to and finds a door that reconnects him to the factory. There, he returns to the secret area to find Randall ready to subject Boo to the scream machine. Randall's camouflaging ability makes it difficult for Sulley to fight him, but the timely arrival of Mike, who had followed Sulley, allows them to overpower Randall and save Boo in time, and the two friends apologize and make up. Randall chases them to the door storage area, and while traveling along the roller-coaster-like system, Sulley realizes Boo's laughter activates the doors, allowing them to evade Randall through numerous bedrooms, and lure him through a door, trapping him there after destroying the door.

Sulley and Mike find Boo's door, and are about to return her when they are caught by Waternoose and the CDA. Sulley grabs Boo's door, and he, Mike and Boo race to the training facility where Mike tries to activate the door, allowing Sulley to return Boo. They are caught as Waternoose follows them, admitting that kidnapping children is necessary to assure that Monstropolis continues to receive power. Unknown to Waternoose, Mike never activated the door, causing Waternoose to enter the training simulator instead, where his confession was recorded. The CDA take Waternoose away, and allow Sulley to return Boo to her room before shredding her door. Sulley keeps a splinter of wood as a memento. While Mike dwells on the fact that an angry mob will soon be after them, they had some good laughs on their adventure. This prompts Sulley to remember the overload Boo's laughter caused at their apartment, giving him an idea.

Some time later, Sulley has become CEO of Monsters, Inc.; now aware that children's laughter is much more powerful than their screams, the monsters, like Mike, enter children's bedrooms and perform comedy routines, generating enough energy to easily power the city. Mike shows Sulley to a secret project he has been working on: recreating Boo's door from the wood splinters. Sulley inserts his memento, the last piece needed to complete it, and the door activates. When he peeks into her room, Boo greets him as "Kitty" once again.

Voice cast

• John Goodman as James P. "Sulley" Sullivan  – The main protagonist of the film. Sulley is a giant furry blue monster with horns and purple spots. Even though he excels at scaring children, he is kind-hearted and thoughtful by nature.
• Billy Crystal as Michael "Mike" Wazowski  – The secondary protagonist of the film. Mike is a green monster with a ball-shaped body, a single big eyeball, and skinny arms and legs. He runs Sulley's station on the scare floor, and they are close friends and roommates. Mike has an outgoing personality and is dating Celia Mae. He has an ego that often makes him forget something obvious, such as how his face is obscured in adverisements for the company. He makes cameo appearances in Finding Nemo, Cars, WALL-E and Toy Story 3.
• Mary Gibbs as Boo  – A 2-year-old human girl who is unafraid of any monster except Randall, who regularly scared her at night. She overcomes her fear of Randall by the end of the movie. The book based on the film gives Boo's "real" name as Mary Gibbs, the name of her voice actress. In the film, Boo shows Sulley a drawing of Randall with the name "Mary" signed in the corner.
• Steve Buscemi as Randall Boggs  – An impatient, multi-legged lizard-shaped monster with a chameleon-like ability to change skin color and blend in completely with his surroundings. He is Sulley's rival in scream collection and serves as the secondary antagonist of the film.
• Jennifer Tilly as Celia Mae  – A gorgon-like monster with snakes for hair. She is Mike's girlfriend and the receptionist for Monsters, Inc..
• James Coburn as Henry J. Waternoose III  – A crab-like monster with five eyes. At the start of the film, he is CEO of Monsters, Inc., the job having been in his family for three generations, though he has a much more sinister plot in store and serves as the main antagonist of the film.
• Bob Peterson as Roz  – A slug-like monster with a raspy voice (similar to Selma Diamond's). She is the administrative clerk for Scarefloor F. At the end of the film she turns out to be the Child Detection Agency's (CDA) "Number One", working undercover for years to reveal the child kidnap plot. She holds a great deal of power over the rest of the CDA, even knowing human contact is not poisonous to monsters.
• Frank Oz as Fungus  – Randall's three-eyed assistant and reluctant participant in the plot.
• John Ratzenberger as the Abominable Snowman  – A yeti banished to the Himalayas. He gave Mike and Sullivan shelter after they were banished. He frequently offers them lemon-flavored snow cones.
• Samuel Lord Black as George Sanderson  – A furry monster with a horn on top of his head, he was frequently assisted by Charlie. He is the butt of a running gag in which he repeatedly contacts human artifacts by accident (due to the static cling of his fur), triggering "23–19" incidents and humorously overblown reactions by the CDA resulting in the removal of his hair.
• Dan Gerson as Smitty and Needleman  – Two goofy monsters with cracking voices who work as janitors and operate the door shredder when required.
• Jeff Pidgeon as Thaddeus Bile (though his friends call him "Phlegm")  – A trainee scarer for Monsters, Inc.
• Bonnie Hunt as Ms. Flint  – A snake-like monster who trains new monsters to scare children.

Production

The idea for Monsters, Inc. started with a lunch in 1994 attended by John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton and Joe Ranft. One of the ideas that came out of the brainstorming session was a film about monsters. "When we were making Toy Story, Pete Docter claimed, "everybody came up to me and said that they totally believed that their toys came to life when they left the room. When Disney asked us to make more films, I wanted to tap into a child-like notion that was similar to Toy Story. I knew monsters were coming out of my closet when I was a kid. So I decided monsters would be appropriate". Docter's original idea revolved around a 30-year-old man dealing with monsters (which he drew in a book as a boy) coming back to bother him as an adult. Each monster represented a fear he had, and conquering those fears caused the monsters eventually to disappear.

Docter started working on the script in 1996, and with Harley Jessup, Jill Culton and Jeff Pidgeon completed a draft treatment in February 1997. However Sulley worked in the scream refinery before being changed to Monsters Inc.'s top scare producer. Also Boo was aged six, but was changed to 3 years of age, because "The younger she was, she became the more dependent on Sulley," Docter claimed. The initial story did not have the character of Mike Wazowski. Mike wasn't added to the story until in April 1998, when development artist Ricky Nierva drew a concept sketch of Mike and everyone liked it. Jeff Pidgeon and Jason Katz story-boarded a test in which Mike was helping Sulley choose a tie for work and Mike Wazowski soon became a vital character in the movie. Originally Mike had no arms, and had to use his legs as appendages, however due to technical difficulties arms were soon added. Billy Crystal had been approached to play Buzz Lightyear in the original Toy Story, but turned down the offer. However, once he saw the film, he regretted not taking the part, and when he was approached to play Mike, he jumped at the offer. The film went into production in 2000.

One of the major breakthroughs of Monsters, Inc. was the simulated movement of Sulley's fur and Boo's shirt. The animators would animate the characters "Bald and Naked" and once the animation was finished a computer program aided by the Simulation Department would apply the hair and cloth onto the characters. If Sulley moved the hair would react to the movement just like it would in nature. The same goes for Boo's t-shirt that would produce wrinkles in the fabric. This would save the animators from animating the three million hairs on Sullivan individually.

A lawsuit by Stanley Mouse alleged that the characters of Mike and Sulley were based on drawings he had tried to sell to Hollywood in 1998.

Lawsuit

""The effect of [a preliminary injunction] would be devastating," Dick Cook said. Disney had set the [release] date far in advance, close to a year ago. Disney had primed audiences with about forty thousand trailers in movie theaters and a costly ad campaign. There had been a "giant press junket" two weeks earlier with Docter and Lasseter and the film's stars. The company had already spent about $3.5 million on a premiere and special screenings. Everything had been choreographed to peak on November 2. Tomorrow."

— David Price, in his book The Pixar Touch (2008)

Shortly before the film's release, Pixar was sued by children's song writer Lori Madrid of Wyoming, claiming that the company had stolen her ideas from a 1997 story she penned, titled "There's a Boy in My Closet." Madrid mailed her story around to half-dozen publishers in October 1999, notably a San Francisco publishing house called Chronicle Books. No publishers expressed interest in the story, so she instead turned it into a local stage musical in the summer of 2001. As the summer came to a close, several her friends and coworkers began urging her to see a trailer for Monsters, Inc., believing the film to be plainly based on her story. Madrid reached the same conclusions after seeing the trailer herself.

After searching on the Internet, Madrid found that a book titled The Art of Monsters, Inc. had recently been published by Chronicle. Pixar had previously published books with Disney's in-house publishing arm, Hyperion. She concluded that Chronicle passed her story to Pixar in 1999, and Pixar had reciprocated by switching to Chronicle. After finding a lawyer, she filed suit in October 2001 against Chronicle Books, Pixar, and Disney in a federal court in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Her lawyer asked the court to issue a preliminary injunction that would forbid Pixar and Disney from releasing the film while the suit was pending. "Over their objections, however, the judge ordered a hearing on the motion for a preliminary injunction to take place on November 1, 2001 — the day before the scheduled release of Monsters, Inc. on some 5,800 screens in 3,200 theaters across the country."

Docter and Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group chairman Dick Cook testified on Thursday, November 1 in Cheyenne as planned. Cook stated the effect of a preliminary injunction against the release of the film would be devastating, as Monsters, Inc. was one of the company's "tent-pole" films for the season. The 5,800-odd prints, he said, had already gone out from Technicolor's warehouses in California and Ohio and were sitting at theaters. Judge Clarence Brimmer did not issue the injunction and Monsters, Inc. opened as planned on November 2, nationwide. Brimmer ruled on June 26, 2002 that the film had simply nothing in common with the poem.

Release

The film was theatrically released on November 2, 2001. It was released on the VHS and DVD on September 17, 2002, and on the Blu-ray on November 10, 2009. After the success of the 3D re-release of The Lion King, Disney and Pixar announced a 3D re-release of Monsters, Inc. on January 18, 2013 in honor of Monsters University coming on June 21.

Reception

Box office

Monsters, Inc. ranked No.1 at the box office its opening weekend, grossing $62,577,067 in North America alone. The film had a small drop-off of 27.2% over its 2nd weekend, earning another $45,551,028. In its 3rd weekend the film experienced a larger decline of 50.1%, placing itself in the second position just after Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. In its 4th weekend, however, there was an increase of 5.9%. Making $24,055,001 that weekend, it is the 7th biggest (in US$) 4th weekend ever for a film. As of September 26, 2002, the film has a total of $255,873,250 in the United States and Canada and $269,493,347 in other territories for a worldwide gross of $525,366,597. The film is Pixar's sixth highest grossing movie worldwide and fifth in North America.

In the UK, Ireland and Malta, it earned £37,264,502 ($53,335,579) in total, marking the 6th highest-grossing animated feature of all time in the country and the 32nd largest movie of all time. In Japan, although earning $4,471,902 during its opening and ranking 2nd behind The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring for the weekend, on subsequent weekends it moved to first place due to exceptionally small decreases or even increases and dominated for six weeks at the box office. It finally reached $74,437,612, standing as the third highest-grossing film of 2002 and the third largest US animated feature of all time in the country behind Toy Story 3 and Finding Nemo.

Critical reception

The film received near universal critical acclaim. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 95% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 164 reviews, with an average score of 7.9/10. The critical consensus was: "Even though Monsters, Inc. lacks the sophistication of the Toy Story series, it is a still delight for children of all ages." Another review aggregator, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated a score of 78 based on 34 reviews.

Charles Taylor from Salon.com stated: "It's agreeable and often funny, and adults who take their kids to see it might be surprised to find themselves having a pretty good time." A. O. Scott from The New York Times gave a positive review saying: "There hasn't been a film in years to use creative energy as efficiently as Monsters, Inc." Mike Clark from USA Today also gave a positive review saying: "Though the comedy is sometimes more frenetic than inspired and viewer emotions are rarely touched to any notable degree, the movie is as visually inventive as its Pixar predecessors." Reelviews film critic James Berardinelli, who gave the film 3½ stars out of 4 wrote: "Monsters, Inc. is one of those rare family films that parents can enjoy (rather than endure) along with their kids." Roger Ebert, film critic from Chicago Sun-Times, while praising the movie with 3 out of 4 stars, wrote: "Monsters, Inc. is cheerful, high-energy fun, and like the other Pixar movies, has a running supply of gags and references aimed at grownups." Lisa Schwarzbaum, a film critic for Entertainment Weekly gave a B for the movie and wrote: "Everything from Pixar Animation Studios, the snazzy, cutting-edge computer animation outfit, looks really, really terrific, and unspools with a liberated, heppest-moms-and-dads-on-the-block iconoclasm."

Accolades

See also: Table of Pixar awards and nominations for Monsters, Inc.

Monsters, Inc. won the Academy Award for Best Original Song (Randy Newman, after 15 previous nominations, for If I Didn't Have You). It was one of the first animated films to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Film (lost to Shrek). It was also nominated for Best Original Score (lost to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring) and Best Sound Editing (lost to Pearl Harbor).

At the Kid's Choice Awards in 2002, it was nominated for "Favorite Voice in an Animated Movie" for Billy Crystal (who lost to Eddie Murphy in Shrek).

American Film Institute Lists

• AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs:
  • If I Didn't Have You – Nominated
• AFI's 10 Top 10 – Nominated Animated Film

Music

Monsters, Inc.
Soundtrack album by Randy Newman
Released	October 23, 2001
Recorded	2000–2001
Genre	Score
Length	60:30
Label	Walt Disney
Pixar Soundtracks chronology
Toy Story 2 (1999) Monsters, Inc. (2001) Finding Nemo (2003)

The album was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score and a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media. The score lost both these awards to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, but after 16 nominations, the song "If I Didn't Have You" finally won Newman his first Academy Award for Best Original Song. It also won a Grammy for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.

All songs written and composed by Randy Newman. 

No.	Title	Length
1.	"If I Didn't Have You" (performed by Billy Crystal and John Goodman)	3:41
2.	"Monsters, Inc."	2:09
3.	"School"	1:38
4.	"Walk to Work"	3:29
5.	"Sulley and Mike"	1:57
6.	"Randall Appears"	0:49
7.	"Enter the Heroes"	1:03
8.	"The Scare Floor"	2:41
9.	"Oh, Celia!"	1:09
10.	"Boo's Adventures in Monstropolis"	6:23
11.	"Boo's Tired"	1:03
12.	"Putting Boo Back"	2:22
13.	"Boo Escapes"	0:52
14.	"Celia's Mad"	1:41
15.	"Boo Is a Cube"	2:19
16.	"Mike's in Trouble"	2:19
17.	"The Scream Extractor"	2:12
18.	"Sulley Scares Boo"	1:10
19.	"Exile"	2:17
20.	"Randall's Attack"	2:22
21.	"The Ride of the Doors"	5:08
22.	"Waternoose is Waiting"	3:14
23.	"Boo's Going Home"	3:34
24.	"Kitty"	1:20
25.	"If I Didn't Have You" (performed by Newman)	3:38
Total length:		60:30

Prequel

Plans for a second Monsters, Inc. film have existed since 2005. Following disagreements between then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner and then-Pixar owner Steve Jobs, Disney (who at the time owned the rights to make sequels to all of Pixar's films up to Cars) announced that a sequel to Monsters, Inc. would be made by Circle 7 Animation, who were also working on an early draft of Toy Story 3. Titled Monsters, Inc. 2: Lost in Scaradise, the film would have focused on Mike and Sulley visiting the human world to give Boo a birthday present, only to find that she had moved. After getting trapped in the human world, Mike and Sulley split up after disagreeing on what to do (Sulley wanting to look for Boo, Mike wanting to find a way to get back to Monstropolis). Screenwriters Rob Muir and Bob Hilgenberg were hired to write a script for the film, and storyboarded an early draft of it. However, Disney's change of management in late 2005 (which saw Eisner replaced by his lieutenant Robert Iger) led to renewed negotiations with Pixar, and in early 2006 Disney announced that they had purchased the studio. The Disney-owned sequel rights were then transferred to Pixar, leading to the cancellation of Muir and Hilgenberg's version of the film and the subsequent closure of Circle 7.

A Pixar-made sequel was officially confirmed in 2010. The original release date of the film was November 16, 2012, but it was later changed to November 2, 2012 to avoid direct competition with The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2. On April 5, 2011, it was announced that the film's release date had been pushed back to June 21, 2013 due to the success of Pixar films that are released in the summer, according to Disney distribution executive Chuck Viane. It will be the studios' fourteenth feature film.

In early 2011, there were claims that Monsters, Inc. 2 was going to be a prequel which focuses on Sulley and Mike's studies at the University of Fear, where they start off as rivals but soon become best friends, similar to how Woody and Buzz Lightyear start off in the first Toy Story. On March 29, 2011, it was confirmed that the film will indeed be a prequel and the new title Monsters University was revealed. The feature will be directed by Dan Scanlon and produced by Kori Rae. It was also announced that John Goodman, Billy Crystal and Steve Buscemi will be reprising their roles. New voice cast includes Dave Foley, Julia Sweeney, Joel Murray, and Peter Sohn.

Other media

Additional short film

An animated short, Mike's New Car, was made by Pixar in 2002 in which the two main characters have assorted misadventures with a car Mike has just bought. This film was not screened in theaters, but is included with all home video releases of Monsters, Inc., and on Pixar's Dedicated Shorts DVD.

Manga

A manga version of Monsters, Inc. was made by Hiromi Yamafuji and distributed in Kodansha's Comic Bon Bon magazine in Japan; the manga was published in English by Tokyopop until it went out of print.^{[citation needed]}

Video games

Main articles: Monsters, Inc. Scream Team, Monsters, Inc. Scare Island, and Monsters, Inc. Scream Arena

A series of video games, including a multi-platform video game were created based on the film.

Walt Disney's World on Ice

Feld Entertainment toured a Monsters, Inc. edition of their Walt Disney's World on Ice skating tour from 2003 to 2007.

Theme park attractions

Monsters, Inc. has inspired three attractions at Disney theme parks around the world.

• In 2006 Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue! opened at Disney California Adventure Park at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. The dark ride was developed to boost the theme park's lagging attendance, and was quite successful in doing so for a short time.
• In 2007 Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor opened at the Magic Kingdom at the Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, replacing The Timekeeper. The show is improvisational in nature, and features the opportunity for Guests to interact with the monster comedians, and even submit jokes of their own via text message. The attraction has been praised for its originality.
• In 2009 Monsters, Inc.: Ride & Go Seek opened at Tokyo Disneyland at the Tokyo Disney Resort in Chiba, Japan.

See also

• List of animated feature-length films
• List of computer-animated films

External links

• Official website
• Monsters, Inc. at the Internet Movie Database
• Monsters, Inc. at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• Monsters, Inc. at AllRovi
• Monsters, Inc. at Rotten Tomatoes
• Monsters, Inc. at Metacritic
• Monsters, Inc. at Box Office Mojo
• Monsters University at the Internet Movie Database