Pete Docter, director of Monsters, Inc. and Up, was interviewed by New York Magazine and was asked about his next project. Here’s the exchange:
How far into the next project are you?
That one 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.Is that the Monsters Inc. sequel?
I’m not working on … I’m working on something else, but I cannot announce what it is.When will it be released?
Well, if the past is any guide, it generally takes at least four years, if not five, to do these. So I don’t know … What is that? I’m bad with math.
So if there is indeed a Monsters, Inc. 2 in the works, as rumors and circumstantial evidence has pointed to for a while, Pete Docter isn’t directing it. Earlier this year Jim Hill reported that buyers at the Licensing International Expo 2009 were told by Disney that the sequel was happening, although with Pete Docter attached. Also earlier in the year was the odd case of someone on the Pixar lot Google searching for “monsters 2013 pixar” as found by The Pixar Blog.
We know Up‘s co-director, Bob Peterson, shifted away from that production’s final year in order to develop his own feature. I’m thinking he could very well be the one directing Monsters, Inc. 2. He voiced the original’s Roz and was also the film’s story supervisor and just finished up closely working with its director. Who better to be trusted with Mike and Sulley’s next adventure?
Or perhaps all of these elements are completely unrelated. At the very least, Docter didn’t deny that Monsters, Inc. 2 was coming, just that he wasn’t directing it.
Pixar’s current confirmed schedule:
- Toy Story 3, directed by Lee Unkrich for June 18th, 2010.
- Cars 2, directed by Brad Lewis for June 24th, 2011.
- The Bear and the Bow, directed by Brenda Chapman for the holiday season 2011.
- Newt, directed by Gary Rydstrom for June 2012.
