MONSTERS, INC. is Pixar's fourth film to feature a script co-written by Andrew Stanton, who also was an executive pro- ducer. Stanton received an Oscar nomination for his contribution to the screenplay of TOY STORY, and has subsequently become Pixar’s top screenwriter. "They keep giving me the job," he joked, "so I can’t be screwing up that badly. Actually, I was more involved on MONSTERS, INC. as an executive producer during the early stages, because Pete Docter and Jeff Pidgeon came up with the initial idea.... I came in to help Pete on his first movie and sort of played an objective party. It wasn’t until about a year and a half into it, when they were having a frustrating time trying to get the story into shape, that I came on as a writer.
"At that point, there were a lot of strong opinions about where the story should go, and who should do it, and they finally asked me if I would give it a shot. By then, A BUG’S LIFE was coming to an end, and as busy I was in post-production, oftentimes you spend a lot of time in post sitting around, waiting for things to get done, like the color timing or the sound design. When the offer came up, I think they expected my answer to be ‘No,’ but I thought about it and said, ‘Within this time frame, I can give ita try."
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