Production

Plans for a second Monsters, Inc. film existed since 2005. Following disagreements between Disney CEO Michael Eisner and Pixar CEO Steve Jobs, Disney— which owned the rights to make sequels to all of Pixar's films up to Cars—announced that a sequel to Monsters, Inc. would be made by Circle 7 Animation, which was also working on an early draft of Toy Story 3.^[19] Titled Monsters, Inc. 2: Lost in Scaradise, the film would have focused on Mike and Sulley visiting the human world to give Boo a birthday present, only to find that she had moved. After getting trapped in the human world, Mike and Sulley split up after disagreeing on what to do.^[20] Screenwriters Rob Muir and Bob Hilgenberg were hired to write a script for the film, and storyboarded an early draft of it.^[21] However, Disney's change of management in late 2005—in which Eisner was replaced by Robert Iger—led to renewed negotiations with Pixar, and in early 2006 Disney announced it had purchased the studio. The Disney-owned sequel rights were then transferred to Pixar, leading to the cancellation of Muir and Hilgenberg's version of the film and the subsequent closure of Circle 7.^[21]