Ever wondered how Mike Wazowski and James P. Sullivan became such famous monsters and even better friends? In the upcoming Pixar movie, “Monsters University,” Mike and Sully revisit the big screen as college freshmen and embark on the journey of discovering themselves, surviving school and creating a lasting friendship.
With Dan Scanlon as the director and Kori Rae as the producer, this film is sure to carry on the legend of “Monsters Inc.” and can only increase everyone’s love for their favorite monster duo.
To get an inside scoop on the film, which opens June 21, Scanlon and Rae sat down for a phone interview about their take on the “Monsters Inc.” prequel.
The idea to revisit Mike and Sully came about more than 10 years after the original “Monsters Inc.” Instead of following up with the two monsters years later, Scanion decided to go back in time.
“That’s where we started thinking about where these guys meet,” Scanlon said. “We loved the idea of doing something with the university aspect and the fun monsters antics that come out of that. Obviously, Monsters [Elementary] would not have worked. We just knew that we wanted to keep the familiar adult characters in the story. We wanted to show how they became friends.”
Rae agreed with keeping the adult aspect of the characters intact in the prequel.
“We like the university part, because that is such an important time in life,” Rae said. “You figure out who you are and who you want to be, you can reinvent yourself. That college age group and time was very appealing to tell the story from.”
To make the monsters’ journey back in time realistic, Scanlon realized they needed to make some changes.
“The first thing that we did was make them look younger,” Scanlon said. “In doing that, a lot of interesting questions came up, like how do you make an eyeball look younger?”
Once Mike and Sully’s appearances were underway, the task turned to creating a college setting. To prepare for the challenging tasks of creating a university in a monster’s world, both Scanlon and Rae did their research.
“We went back to college and visited schools,” Rae said. “We went into gross dorms and fraternities and truly tried to experience the college life.”
In addition to experiencing student life, Scanlon had an artist accompany them on their visits to different college campuses in hopes of aesthetically recreating the environment.
“The artist came and sketched and drew campus, which helped create Monsters campus into something that hopefully everyone can relate to,” Scanlon said.
The story follows Mike and Sully, who are together in a fraternity and learn how to be true “scarers.”
“Because we were doing a university movie, we wanted to make sure that we had those college archetypes incorporated into the story,” Scanlon said.
Scanlon and Rae felt that Mike and Sully fell perfectly into Greek life.
“We implemented Greek life and fraternities — they were scare rejects that didn’t get into the scare program,” Rae said.
Despite the fraternity jokes and fun of college life, Scanlon hopes audiences are able to decipher the deeper meaning.
“We want it to be a fun college movie,” Scanlon said. “We also want to touch people emotionally in our films. This movie is about letting go of what you think makes you happy and embracing who you truly are.”