Monsters, Inc. director Pete Docter, opened up about the discussions he had during the production process of children favourite film.
In a recent podcast episode of Kelly Corrigan Wonders, Docter, who is known for creative process and the many changes his projects undergo from concept to completion, revealed what idea he fought the hardest for.
Recalling the arguments, he had when it came to writing the end of Monsters, Inc, he said, “We screened Monsters, Inc. for an audience, and, one of the questions that they asked was, ‘How’d you feel about the ending?’ And, you know, kind of a third of the people raised their hand and said they liked it.”
They asked the rest of the audience why they didn’t like it. “And they’re like, we wanna see Sulley (John Goodman) get back together with Boo (Mary Gibbs) at the very end.”
The filmmaker also shared other ways he tried to change the film during production.Â
He said that the original idea of the film was that monster’s weren’t just scary creatures but they were workers doing regular jobs. They would live in people’s closet and would come out as part of their work routine.
Similarly, Sulley, wasn’t scaring kids to generate energy like in the film instead, he scared them as part of a performance entertaining other monsters similar to a staged theatre show.
Monsters Inc. received a nomination for the Oscar for Best Animated Feature (but lost to Shrek).