Monsters, Inc.
It's nothing personal. It's just their job.
Country
Production
Budget
$115 000 000
Revenue
$528 773 250
Director
Actors
Scenario
Producer
Operator
Composer
Artist
Harley Jessup, Bob Pauley, Angus MacLane
Audition
Ruth Lambert, Mary Hidalgo, Matthew Jon Beck
Editing
Short description
Monsters, Inc. is set in Monstropolis, a city whose power comes from the screams of frightened children. At the Monsters, Inc. factory, scarers pass through closet doors into human bedrooms to collect those screams. James P. Sullivan, known as Sulley, is the company's leading scarer, with his friend and assistant Mike Wazowski at his side. Their routine is upended when a young girl called Boo crosses into the monsters' world by accident. Because contact with children is treated as dangerous, Sulley and Mike try to hide her and return her home while keeping her away from the factory's management and from Sulley's rival Randall. In the course of protecting Boo, the pair begin to see their employer's business in a different light.
The film is the feature directing debut of Pete Docter, who went on to direct Up, Inside Out and Soul, and it was written by Andrew Stanton and Daniel Gerson and produced by Darla K. Anderson. John Goodman voices Sulley and Billy Crystal voices Mike, with Mary Gibbs as Boo, Steve Buscemi as Randall, James Coburn as Waternoose and Jennifer Tilly as Celia.
Made by Pixar on a budget of 115 million dollars, it took 529 million dollars worldwide, a strong return on that outlay. On IMDb it holds 8.1 out of 10 from 1.1 million votes, while on TMDB it sits at 7.9 out of 10 from a much smaller electorate of about twenty thousand. A critics' rating of 8.5 out of 10 from 191 reviews places it above both audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- Jennifer Tilly, who voiced Celia, was married to Sam Simon, the creator of the animated series “The Simpsons” (1989). She told Pixar employees about a script she had read, written by the director of “The Simpsons” for an animated film. That director was Brad Bird, and the script was for “The Incredibles” (2004), which Pixar released three years later.
- When Sulley and Mike walk to work and pass by Tony's Grossery, blood oranges (a real variety of orange) are among the items for sale.
- On the scare floor leaderboard, all monsters are listed by their last names. However, only one monster is listed by first name – Randall.
- In the original version of the script, Sulley was not a frightening monster, but a regular corporate employee named Johnson, and his fur was brown. In addition, Mike was Randall's assistant (who was named Ned). In another version of the script, Sulley was Randall's assistant. George Sanderson (the monster constantly caught by CDA due to code 2319 emergencies) was supposed to be the main character, based on the film's original concept – a clumsy and inept monster who couldn't scare anyone until a timid girl, bullied by her brothers, decided to teach him how to be scary. In the final version, George even remained a monster of the same color and type as he was in the original script.
- At the very beginning of the film, when the simulation ends and the monster reaches for the handle on the panel to review the video recording, there's a small indicator 510-752-3000 just below and to the left of the handle. That's Pixar's phone number.
- After Sulley says goodbye to Boo, he closes the closet door. Then Boo jumps off the bed. By the time she runs to the door, she has grown 7%. The programmers had to do this because she was too small to reach the doorknob.
- The film features retro Disneyland posters in Monstropolis and some children's bedrooms.
- The van Randall falls into first appeared in "A Bug's Life" (1998).
- In some scenes, Boo’s giggling and screams don’t produce any energy bursts (for example, her scream right before the moment Sulley saves her from Randall’s scream extractor, and her laughter when she and Sulley are playing hide-and-seek in the bathroom).
- After watching a Monsters, Inc. commercial on television, Mike says to Sully, "You were jealous of my looks back in fourth grade." But from a later part of the cartoon, we learn that Mike and Sully only met in college.
- In the background of the scene where the monster in the form of a drop falls through the grate in the sidewalk, you can see the sign for the art shop Gallerie du Dominique. This shop is named after Dominique Louis, Pixar's art director.
- The plush bear Boo is exactly the same as the bear on the shelf in the bedroom simulator.
- The scream canisters at the beginning and end of the film (when they are filled with laughter instead of screams) are the same capacity (judging by the inscription on the side – “8400 SUV”), but those at the end of the film are clearly larger in size.
- The animators had the idea to give Sulley tentacles instead of legs and to put glasses on him. However, they ultimately decided to leave him with legs because they thought the audience would focus more on the tentacles than on his face. They also wanted to make Mike armless.
- In Sully's apartment, there's a hole in the back of his large armchair to allow his tail to pass through.
- The film became the highest-grossing animated film of all time up to its release.
- Bill Murray was considered for the role of Sulley. Director Pete Docter said that when the filmmakers decided to offer him the role, they couldn't get in touch with him and took that as a rejection.
- The Hidden City cafe, which Mike and Sully pass at the beginning of the film, got its name from a real restaurant in San Francisco that has been one of the favorite spots of Pixar animators, as well as Pete Docter, since the early 1990s.
- John Goodman insisted that Steve Buscemi voice Randall.
- Towards the end of the film, when Mike and Sulley meet with CDA agent number 00001, at least three CDA agents have the same number (00112).
- The list of ingredients on the cereal that Sully feeds Boo is as follows: tentacles (including suckers), sugar pods, gelatin, artificial flavors, artificial colors (Yellow 53 and 54, Red 400, Blue 21, Purple 16, Reddish-Brown 30), salt, seawater, naturally occurring mercury, barium, sulfuric acid, lead, bile, blood, sweat, tears, zinc oxide, Vitamins D and F, anemones, shrimp, coral, plankton, deadly pufferfish, depleted uranium (to maintain freshness).
- All the digital displays in Monstropolis (Sully's alarm clock radio, the consoles at the station, the "Days Without An Accident" sign) are iconic indicators of decaying discharge, neon digital technology from the 1960s.
- The DVD includes three bonus clips: Put That Thing Back Where It Came From, Or So Help Me! (in the Russian version – “Put it back right now or don't bother me!”), We've got the important things covered, and Pete's Barber Shop.
- John Goodman and Billy Crystal recorded their voices for this film together. This is an unusual move for animated films, where actors usually work individually. Steve Buscemi and Frank Oz (Randall and his assistant) also recorded together for the bathroom scene.
- In the opening scene, one of the toys on the shelf in the bedroom is a toy airplane from *Toy Story* (1995), and as Mike and Sully go through the scare floor, you can spot the clown from the same film. Also, when Randall practices camouflage against different backgrounds, one of those backgrounds is the wallpaper from Andy's room in *Toy Story*.
- In the German dub of the film, the Yeti speaks in Swabian dialect, which is primarily spoken in southwestern Germany, and mentions in conversation that he would rather be exiled to the Swabian Alps, where his friends live.
- Boo's real name is Mary. This can be seen in one of the pencil drawings she shows Sulley in the scene where she is being tucked into Sulley's bed. Incidentally, the actress who voiced Boo is named Mary Gibbs.
- According to sketches available on the DVD, the name of Fungus (Randall's assistant) is Jeff, and his last name was originally Frungus.
- The restaurant that Mike and Celia go to is called Harryhausen (translated as 'At Godzilla's' in the Russian version). This is a tribute to Ray Harryhausen – the man who made the stop-motion monsters for the film 'Jason and the Argonauts' (1963). Also, the octopus behind the restaurant bar has only six legs – a nod to 'It Came from Beneath the Sea' (1955), in which Harryhausen created an octopus with six limbs due to budget constraints.
- At the end of the scene where the monsters are making children laugh instead of scaring them, one monster walks by with a sledgehammer and a watermelon. This is an obvious reference to comedian Gallagher, who popularized this gag.
- At the end of the film, after Mike’s performance where he regurgitates the microphone, a banner reading “Think Funny” hangs behind them while Sulley is talking to Mike. After Celia calls Mike over, the banner is no longer there.
- When Mike takes out his contact lens in the locker room, it isn’t visible in the reflection in the mirror on his locker door.
- Disney and Pixar studios prepared a special trailer for this movie to be shown before 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone' (2001). In it, Mike and Sulley are playing charades in their apartment, and Sulley pretends to be Harry Potter. Mike struggles to guess who he is, suggesting: Dirty Harry; Harry Flowerpot; and 'When Hairy Met Sulley' (a nod to Billy Crystal's role in the 1989 film 'When Harry Met Sally'). Finally, Sulley puts on round glasses, perches on a broomstick with an owl on his arm, to which Mike excitedly guesses 'The Sound of Music' (1965). Sulley gives up and walks away. Only then does Mike finally figure it out: 'Harry Potter.' This is followed by a title card stating, 'Monsters, Inc. is now playing in a theater near you. Really near you. Maybe even in the next theater.' At the end of the trailer, it is Mike's turn to pretend to be someone, and a bored Sulley lazily guesses 'Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope' (1977) within a few seconds, much to Mike's frustration.
- Before the film's premiere, news leaked that the first teaser for 'Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones' (2002) would be shown before the movie. Hundreds of Star Wars fans paid for tickets just to see the teaser.
- In the opening scene, when the monster goes through the door, he almost completely blocks it, but when the instructor points out the mistake by showing this moment in the recording, the door is practically wide open.
- When Randall goes through his first door in the scare floor, the handle is visible on the left. When he comes out of it, the handle is already on the right.
- Towards the end of the film, Mike opens a stack of magazines with him and Sulley on the cover. On the back of the magazine is a full-page advertisement for a computer with the slogan “Scare Different…” In the previous scene, the new slogan “Think Funny” can be seen everywhere in the corporation. Both of these slogans are a reference to Steve Jobs, the former CEO of Pixar and Apple (who brought the phrase “Think Different” to advertising).
- When Sulley rushes into the locker room to hide toys from Boo’s room, it’s visible as he puts them in locker #193 and then slams the door shut with both hands. In the next shot, he removes his hands from locker #190.
- Marry Gibbs, who voiced Boo, was so small that she didn't have a script during recording. They played with her and wrote lines for her to say.
- Typically, rendering a single frame with Sulley took 11–12 hours due to his 2.3 million individually drawn hairs (the exact number of hairs was 2,320,413).
- When Sulley is about to say goodbye to Boo, she tries to play with him. At that moment, she gives him a Nemo doll. This is the first appearance of a character from the animated film “Finding Nemo” (2003), which the studio began working on even before “Monsters, Inc.,” but only finished two years later (Merlin can be spotted on a portrait behind the chef at “Harryhausen’s,” and Nemo is hanging on the wall of the room where Randall is thrown). Boo also gives Sulley a Jessie the Cowgirl doll, which first appeared in “Toy Story 2” (1999), and a Pixar ball taken from “Luxo Jr.” (1986).
- When Mike leaves, congratulating Celia (at the beginning of the film), he moves towards a stripe on the floor. In the next panoramic shot, he is much closer to it than in the previous one.
- When Sully greets Ted (a very large monster of whom only the legs are shown), he was supposed to roar in response like Godzilla. The filmmakers tried to negotiate with Toho studio to use Godzilla’s roar, but Toho refused, so instead Ted responds with a chicken cluck. In one of the post-credit scenes, Rex the dinosaur from *Toy Story* (1995) is shown auditioning for a role in this film.
- In the original, the Yeti describes the children from the Himalayan village as “tough kids, sissy kids, kids who climb on rocks.” This line is taken from an old jingle for Armour hot dogs.
- At the end of the film, Randall appears in a trailer from “A Bug’s Life” (1998), standing next to the “Pizza Planet” truck from “Toy Story” (1995). The person inside the trailer is the same boy from the simulation bedroom at the beginning of the film. And the boy’s mother is made from the same model, only with a bun added to her hair.
- On the scoreboard in the corporation, some monsters sometimes show values lower than they were. For example, when Waternoose talks to Jerry, and also immediately before the first instance of 2319.
- On the leaderboard, immediately after Sully and Randall, is the name Renft. This is a nod to Joe Ranft, who was a Pixar screenwriter for a long time.
- In the original, in the sushi restaurant “At Godzilla’s,” the employees shout “Get a paper bag!” every time someone passes through the entrance. In Japan, it is common practice for employees of any store to shout “irasshaimase!” And the monsters’ cry is likely a reference to this fact.
- An additional short film called *Mike's New Car* (2002) was originally intended to be a scene from *Monsters, Inc*. But it was ultimately released separately and became the first Pixar short film in which the characters speak.
- When Waternoose congratulates Sulley on his successes, various monsters enter the frame, passing behind Sulley. Then Waternoose is shown, and a second later, Sulley again, but the monsters behind him are gone.
- The establishment called Pete's Barber Shop is named after director Pete Docter.
- In early versions of the script, the character Boo was six years old. But the screenwriters decided to make her even younger, because that would make her more dependent on Sully.
- Bob Peterson, the story supervisor for this film, temporarily voiced Roz during production. This nasal, drawn-out voice proved to be such a successful option that it was retained in the final version of the film.
- The numbers 2319 may be a reference to the 23rd and 19th letters of the English alphabet (W and S). These letters may stand for White Sock – the first item belonging to people that was destroyed by CDA employees.
- The control panel for the doors at Monsters, Inc. has a button labeled FIZT. At the time the film was made, Fiz-T (Physics-Tool) was the latest software developed by Pixar Animation Studios for realistically processing complex physical models. In the film, it was used for Sully's fur and Boo's clothing. Another button on the panel is IKT. This is also a Pixar software product called Inverse Kinematics Tool.
- Billy Crystal was originally offered the role of Woody in *Toy Story* (1995), and he agreed. After Tom Hanks expressed his desire to voice the role, Crystal was offered a role in a future Pixar film. He responded: "Do whatever is best for your film, but if anything comes up, don't forget about me." They didn't forget, and he got a role in that film.
- When Mike and Sulley run through the closet doors around the world, the time of day is inconsistent. It’s daylight in Japan, dark in Nepal (3 hours behind Japan), and daylight again in Paris (7 hours behind Japan). Of course, it’s possible that it’s early morning in Japan, night in Nepal, and very late daylight in Paris in the summer, but then it should be midday on the Gulf Coast of the USA, where Randall ends up, and not late evening.
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