The anticipated Pixar film, Monsters University, opens with young Mike, voiced by Noah Johnston, going to visit Monsters, Inc. on a class trip. But in a recent interview with adult-Mike voice actor, Billy Crystal, it was revealed that this wasn’t always the plan, in fact, Crystal didn’t even know about this sequence.
“I wasn’t even – I didn’t even know that that was in the movie till I saw it,” Crystal revealed. “No, because I had filmed – I had recorded three different openings, so I wasn’t sure what they had used. The first version I did without John was when I played my parents and Mike and his bored sister in the car – see, it’s funny – in the car, going to drop him off at college, something I guess we’ve all experienced at some point. So I wasn’t sure what was in the opening movie till I saw that. I would love to meet him ‘cause he did a great job. It’s a beautiful sequence.”
At the media event where Crystal was interviewed, his co-star John Goodman, who voices Sulley, asked Crystal if he thought Pixar animated this particular opening, in which he voiced the entire Wazowski clan. While Crystal didn’t know, both actors agreed that they would love to see it.
Hopefully when Monsters University comes out on DVD, we’ll get to see a storyboard version of this, because this scene sounds hilarious! What do you think of this alternate opening?