Docter's Original 'Monsters, Inc.' Pitch, New Docter Project

The Creative Screenwriter Magazine's Podcast recently interviewed Up and Monsters, Inc. director Pete Docter. The entire podcast is very interesting, and I recommedn hearing all of it, but the most fascinating part was when Pete revealed his original pitch for my favorite Pixar movie, Monsters, Inc. And believe me, this film turned out quite differently than originally intended:

Well, my idea was that what it was about was about a 30 year old man who is like an accountant or something, he hates his job, and one day he gets a book with some drawings in it that he did when he was a kid from his mom, and he doesn't think anything of it and he puts it on the shelf and that night, monsters show up. And nobody else can see them. He thinks he's starting to go crazy, they follow him to his job, and on his dates, and all this- and it turns out these monsters are fears that he never dealt with as a kid. And each one of them represents a different kind of fear. As he conquers those fears, the guys who he slowly becomes kind of friends with- they disappear as he conquers those fears. It's this bittersweet kinda ending where they go away, and so not much of that stayed...it sounds better as a pitch than it did at the time- anyway.

As you can see, they must have reworked the story hundreds, if not thousands, of times to get to what we eventually know and love as Monsters, Inc. Very interesting.

Download the podcast at the Creative Screenwriter Magazine Blog.


In addition to this recent audio interview, Pete Docter also did an interview with the New York Entertainment section Vulture about his work. He had this to say:

I’m mostly focused on the next film that I have in development already. ...I just started. We finished Up, I took some time off, spent some time in Europe and Japan doing publicity over there, so I’ve only been on this for like a couple weeks," he says

When asked if this upcoming work was the long-rumored sequel to Monsters, Inc., Docter replied:

"I'm not working on [it]... I'm working on something else, but I cannot announce what it is."

The fact that he is not working on it makes me want to think that perhaps the sequel is indeed in the works, just not headed by Docter. Especially since there is a lot of evidence that points to a sequel for Sulley and Mike. Also, what is this secret project of Docter's that should be released around 2013/2014? Whatever it is, I'm sure that it will be wonderful, and I cannot wait to see what it will be. Read the great and complete interview right here.