Monsters, Inc. celebrating its 15th anniversary this week, EW had to get in touch with resident Pixar filmmaker Pete Docter, who directed the latter and has been an integral story trust member on the Toy Story franchise.
While Docter offered up a slew of stories about the early production of Monsters (which you can look forward to reading Wednesday on EW.com ), he also commented on whether audiences could ever expect to see another adventure for the film’s main monster duo, Mike (Billy Crystal) and Sulley (John Goodman). The pair did get a second film — 2013’s prequel, Monsters University — so Mike and Sulley’s journeys beyond the events of Monsters, Inc. are still rife for exploration.
“You never say never — who knows what will happen?” Docter says. “We purposely went with a prequel for Monsters University because we didn’t want to answer some of the questions about what happens to Boo, and how does she grow up, and things like that. It would have to be really compelling, which is hopefully the benchmark for all of our sequels, anyway.”
The internet has generated its fair share of completely unfounded rumors about a purported Monsters, Inc. 3, but the most frequent speculation always seems to come back to Boo, the adorable babbling toddler from the first film. For one reason or another, fans seem to want an update on whereabouts (she’d be around high school age by now). Strangely enough, such a Boo-focused sequel would actually return the Monsters, Inc. story to one of its earliest, albeit scrapped, pitches: an adult interacts with the monsters of his youth. “Part of that idea was like a Peter Pan-type thing, where [Wendy] had been visited by Peter Pan as a kid and had sort of half-forgotten who he was,” Docter explains.
But, to reiterate, a Monsters, Inc. sequel is not nigh, nor is it even on the table right now at Pixar, which has three sequels in development and only originals planned after that. Docter’s next directorial effort is an original story, and since Pixar favors sequels only when a film’s director is involved, he hasn’t embarked on a five-year-journey follow-up to Monsters Inc. — or even Inside Out 2 for that matter.
So, no need to panic just yet. However ... Every single time there's rumor and a Pixar veteran stated a certain sequel isn't planned yet, while talking about it anyway, sharing some ideas, it didn't take very long for the studio to announce the sequel is indeed on the table. Last examples were Finding Dory, Cars 3 and Toy Story 4.
So, what do you guys thing? Would you like to see what happened to Boo?