This weekend at the D23 Expo, Disney enthusiasts had the honor of asking questions about Pixar’s upcoming prequel, Monsters University, to be answered by the director himself, Dan Scanlon. Facts learned a lot about the film, including some backstory behind its creation, what the “university” will look like, and, most importantly, which characters will be returning.
Scanlon did officially confirm the Steve Buscemi will reprise his role as Randall, the color-changing, amphibian-like antagonist from Monsters, Inc., but he didn’t say in what context. For all we know, he could just be another monster they went to school with. Based on their intense hatred of the lizard, I feel like Randall has been bossing around Mike (Billy Crystal) and Sully (John Goodman) for a long time, and that there’s a chance he could be in the film quite a bit.
Unfortnately, Scanlon was more discreet about the possibility of Boo’s return. He pointed out that the adorable little girl that everyone fell in love with wouldn’t have even been born in the time period where Mike and Sully went to college, making her appearance impossible.
Scanlon also revealed a bit about the university Mike and Sully were once rivals at, saying that it will look like a monster version of MIT-meets-Harvard and that Pixar employees visited top ranking-universities to do research to help design the college.
According to Scanlon, Monsters University has been in the works for years. Between the work going into it, the university’s inevitably awesome design, and the return of Randall/potential return of Boo, Monsters University sounds more than promising.