The Monsters, Inc. sequel that never was

Jim Hill has the rundown on Monsters, Inc. 2: Lost in Scaradise, the sequel that was almost, but not quite, made in the mid-2000’s by Disney’s Circle 7 animation studio. Disney’s then-CEO, Michael Eisner, created Circle 7 to make in-house sequels to Pixar films (Disney had the right to do that under its distribution deal with Pixar). The operation was shut down when Disney acquired Pixar in 2006.

The actual Monsters, Inc. 2—a prequel to the original—is the next film on Pixar’s slate after Cars 2, and is scheduled to be released in the U.S. on November 2, 2012.

The Pixar Touch on A113Animation

The animation fan blog A113Animation posted a review a couple days ago of The Pixar Touch.

The Wild Things Test

After young Disney animator John Lasseter saw footage of computer animation that an outside production company had created for Tron, Lasseter and colleague Glen Keane won approval to create a short test film incorporating computer animation.

The resulting 1983 film, known as the Wild Things test, was meant to be a sample of a proposed feature film of Where the Wild Things Are. The test combined computer-animated backgrounds with cel-animated characters.

Cartoon Brew has just posted a neat contemporaneous account of the project that appeared in an internal Disney publication (originally posted in December by Hans Perk). I was glad to see Tom Wilhite recognized for his role in the project (he was the Disney live-action executive who approved it—the animation side of the studio wasn’t interested).

25 years of Pixar

Lucasfilm spun off its computer graphics group and sold it to Steve Jobs as Pixar, Inc. 25 years ago today. Mike of The Pixar Blog very kindly invited me to share some reflections for the occasion.

Fortune: DreamWorks Animation a top-rated employer

In Fortune magazine’s latest list of the top 100 companies to work for, DreamWorks Animation is rated #10. No other film studio appears on the list (unless you count toy company and film producer Hasbro, at #59).

The creators of Shrek and Kung Fu Panda are lavished with free breakfast and lunch, movie screenings, afternoon yoga, on-campus art classes and monthly parties.

CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg still takes time to call job candidates to encourage them to join.

Any DreamWorker can pitch a movie idea to company executives — and can take the company-sponsored “Life’s A Pitch” workshop to learn how best to do it.

Why DreamWorks and not Pixar? I can’t tell. I assume Fortune’s methodology is on the site somewhere, but I couldn’t find it. Pixar employees tend to be very enthusiastic about their workplace.