Monsters, Inc. (franchise)

***Monsters, Inc.*** is a CGI animated film series and Disney media franchise that began with the 2001 film, *Monsters, Inc.*, produced by Pixar and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. The original film was followed by a prequelfilm, *Monsters University*, released in 2013.

## Films

### ***Monsters, Inc.* (2001)**

Main article: Monsters, Inc.

The first film introduces the monster world, where monsters enter the human world at night and scare children in order to generate power. When a little girl accidentally enters the monster world, friends Mike and Sulley must find a way to hide her from the authorities and return her to her own world, and in the process learn that not everything they have been led to believe about humans is true. The film surpassed *Toy Story 2* and peaked as the second highest-grossing animated film of all time, behind only 1994's *The Lion King* at the time.[2] It was one of the first animated films to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature but lost to *Shrek*.

### ***Monsters University* (2013)**

Main article: Monsters University

A prequel to the first film, *Monsters University* tells Mike and Sulley's backstory. The future friends meet at college and initially do not get along, but end up on the same team in the university's "Scare Games", where they and their team of misfits must beat the odds and win the competition, or be expelled from school. As the team struggles, the two learn to work together, and slowly become best friends.

## Television Series

A television series spin-off of *Monsters, Inc.* was confirmed in a Disney press release on November 9, 2017 as part of an exclusive series for Walt Disney Studio's upcoming streaming service Disney+.

## Short Films

### **Charades**

*Charades*[4] is a two-minute[5] promotional short animated film, featuring characters from *Monsters Inc.*. The short was theatrically released on November 16, 2001 with *Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone*. The cast consists of John Goodman and Billy Crystal.[4]

In the short, Sulley is shown playing a game of charades with Mike, but Mike is unable to guess the phrase "*Harry Potter*". Afterwords, Mike attempts to charade, but a bored Sulley quickly and correctly guesses *Star Wars*. A bewildered Mike asks how he does it.[5]

### **Party Central**

Main article: Party Central

*Party Central* is a six-minute[6] short animated film, featuring characters from *Monsters University*. It premiered on August 9, 2013, at the D23 Expo. The short was set to be released theatrically with *The Good Dinosaur* in 2014,[7] before the film was pushed back to 2015. Instead, it was theatrically released on March 21, 2014, with *Muppets Most Wanted*.[6] The short was written and directed by Kelsey Mann, story supervisor on *Monsters University*.[6] The cast consists of Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Peter Sohn, Julia Sweeney, Charlie Day, Nathan Fillion, Dave Foley, Sean Hayes, Bobby Moynihan, and Joel Murray.[8]

In the short, the Oozma Kappa fraternity organizes a party, but no one shows up. To solve the problem, they use door stations to steal visitors from the biggest party going on at another fraternity.

## Reception

### **Box office performance**

The film series has grossed a total of $1,306,110,769, making the *Monsters Inc.* franchise the Ninth highest-grossing animated film franchise.

*Monsters, Inc.* ranked No. 1 at the box office its opening weekend, grossing $62,577,067 in North America alone. The film had a small drop-off of 27.2% over its second weekend, earning another $45,551,028. In its third weekend, the film experienced a larger decline of 50.1%, placing itself in the second position just after *Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone*. In its fourth weekend, however, there was an increase of 5.9%. Making $24,055,001 that weekend for a combined total of over $562 million. It is the seventh biggest (in US$) fourth weekend ever for a film.[9][10]

*Monsters University* has earned $268,227,670 in North America, and $475,066,843 in other territories, for a worldwide total of $743,294,513.[11] The film earned $136.9 million on its opening weekend worldwide. For unknown reasons, Disney declined to provide a budget for the film, although BoxOffice.com cites a budget of a total of $270 million.[12] *Entertainment Weekly* speculated that it was higher than that of *Brave* ($185 million), mostly due to high cost of John Goodman and Billy Crystal reprising their roles.[13] Shockya, a subsidiary website of CraveOnline, estimated the budget to be $200 million, on par with *Toy Story 3* and *Cars 2*.[14]