With Pixar’s “Up” claiming first place at the box office in its second weekend -- it’s just behind “Star Trek” in terms of the highest two-week tally for 2009 -- congratulations are in order for the film’s director, Pete Docter. Instead of kudos, Docter and his next project are making headlines today: a sequel to his first Pixar feature, “Monsters Inc.” Speculative rumors of a “Monsters Inc. 2” have been floating around for awhile, but we're now one step closer to official confirmation thanks to Disney expert Jim Hill.
In his coverage of Licensing International Expo 2009, Hill reports that licensing buyers were told of the sequel, though they were also apparently supposed to keep the news a secret. Of course now that the information has been leaked, along with Docter’s "Up" success, we can likely expect a formal announcement from Pixar very soon. I also expect that we'll see such an announcement accompanied by some sort of defense for the animation studio’s continued interest in franchising its films. Considering that Pixar was initially against the idea of sequels, a lot of people will likely be critical of such a seemingly submissive and creatively bankrupt direction for the Disney-owned animation studio to take.
Technically, a feature follow-up to “Monsters Inc.” won’t be the first sequel to the 2001 hit. The Oscar-nominated short film “Mike’s New Car” was included as a bonus feature on “Monsters Inc.” home video releases. Although no plot ideas were revealed with the news leak, there are numerous possibilities for the further adventures of Mike and Sulley (voiced by Billy Crystal and John Goodman in the original film), as indicated by that hilarious supplemental cartoon.
Personally, I’d prefer to see Pixar not go the “Toy Story” franchise route -- as good as that has been so far -- by having the monsters reunite with the original film's little girl Boo, now all grown up. At the end of “Monsters Inc.,” Sulley rebuilds the door that serves as a gateway between the girl’s bedroom and Monstropolis, hinting strongly that the friendship -- not to mention the franchise -- will continue. Then again, linking the guys up with an entirely new kid, perhaps even a child of grown-up Boo, could be too much of a repeat. Pixar will have to walk a fine line if they intend to stick to their mantra of only doing a sequel is there's a good story for it.
What do you think should happen in “Monsters Inc. 2”? Or do you not even want the sequel at all? Would you rather Pixar put out more original works or are you anxious to revisit your favorite characters from past films?
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