USA: FILM PREMIERE OF LATEST DISNEY CARTOON MOVIE "MONSTERS INC" WITH VOICES OF BILLY CRYSTAL AND JOHN GOODMAN

Record ID: 392280

  • Title: USA: FILM PREMIERE OF LATEST DISNEY CARTOON MOVIE "MONSTERS INC" WITH VOICES OF BILLY CRYSTAL AND JOHN GOODMAN
  • Date: 13th October 2001
  • Summary: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (OCTOBER 13) (REUTERS) SMV (SOUNDBITE) (ENGLISH) DIRECTOR PETE DOCTOR SAYING If the story needs something, we'll figure out a way to do it. In the case of "Monsters," as soon as we came up with the idea, we knew we needed fur, right? And it's gotta be, not only fur, but it has to be fur on the main character who's in almost every sho
  • Embargoed: 28th October 2001 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES AND FILM LOCATIONS
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA4QZT4T9A39JGSX2ZZSXBNCAIP
  • Story Text: Two years after they scored another huge hit with "Toy Story 2," the folks at Walt Disney and Pixar gathered in Los Angeles on Sunday, October 28 to celebrate the World Premiere of their latest collaboration, "Monsters, Inc.," featuring the voice talents of Billy Crystal and John Goodman.
    Following huge successes with the "Toy Story" series of films and "A Bug's Life," executive producer John Lasseter joins new director Peter Doctor and the rest of his colleagues at the computer animation house Pixar to present the latest all-compute animated Disney comedy "Monster, Inc."
    John Goodman and Billy Crystal provide the voices for James P. Sullivan and Mike Wazowski, the top employees at Monsters, Incorporated, the most important and respected company in the whole monster world. Their job is taken very seriously: they, along with a team of crack "scarers," spend each night sneaking into the bedroom closets of children around the world in order to scare them and collect their screams, which are then used to power the monster city and world.
    They are constantly warned to never make contact with the children, as the mere touch of their skin could prove to be toxic and even deadly to the monsters. Of course, Mike and Sully's lives are turned upside down when one little girl accidentally wanders through the closet door and into the monster world. It gets even more complicated when the little girl, nicknamed "Boo," gets attached to the two monsters and refuses to leave them alone.
    Also providing voices in the film are Steve Buscemi as Randall, a rival and nefarious monster with some nasty plans of his own, James Coburn as the company's CEO Henry Waternoose, Jennifer Tilly as the company receptionist and Wazowski's girlfriend and "Toy Story" alumnus John Ratzenberger as the Abominable Snowman, an outcast from the monster world who now lives and scares in the real world.
    Goodman previously lent his voice to last year's Disney animation project "The Emperor's New Groove." The difference with this project is that he and Crystal recorded most of their voice tracks together in the room at the same time.
    Traditionally, the voice talents are isolated and recorded individually over the course of several months. Both Crystal and Goodman agree that this decision helped heighten their performances and better the film ten fold.
    While the actors were giving voice to the characters, Lasseter, Docter and a team of more than 35 animators were bringing the visuals to life with the advanced computers and software housed at the 15-year old production company Pixar.
    The big technical improvement on this film was the ability to realistically create the purple-blue fur on Goodman's character. They call it the most complex animation any computer has achieved to date.
    Once again, Randy Newman is on board as the film's composer and songwriter. He previously served in that capacity on both "Toy Story" films and "A Bug's Life." This time out, he wrote an end credit ode to friendship called "If I Didn't Have You," which is sung by none other than John Goodman and Billy Crystal.
    "Monster, Inc." opens in theaters throughout the United States on Friday, November 2.
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