A prequel to Monsters Inc, Monsters University is the first “animated college movie.” The movie, scheduled for a June 21, 2013 release, tells the story of how Mike Wazowski and Sulley became friends during their college years at scare school. This weekend at D23 Expo, Pixar shared some details about the project. VSUAL showcases some early concept sketches and character designs from the project.
One of the early concept drawings of an early Mike in college was dated 2008, which goes to show you just how long this Monsters Inc prequel has actually been in development. It’s kind of amazing that we only learned that it would be a prequel storyline earlier this year. To give you an idea of the timeline, Ratatouille was just completed when they began concept work for this film — it was that long ago.
Anyone who follows Pixar’s development process probably knows that the animation studio’s artists usually take research field trips while developing new films. For Cars, they traveled across America on Route 66. For Ratatouille, they took a trip to Paris to study the city and eat in some of the fine restaurants. For Up, they took a trip to South America to study the the strange wilderness of the region. For Monsters University, Scanlon and crew took tours of Ivy league college campuses. Scanlon joked that they did this research because most of the Pixar artists and animators “went to art school and have no idea what real college is like.”
Here are some concept sketches and character models from the project:
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