"We had a meeting to see if there was even an idea for a Monsters thing. We threw out a lot of ideas, but the prequel as the thing we really got excited about because we wanted to do something about their relationship and we felt like the best way to learn more about these guys was to go back rather than go forward. Then obviously on top of that just the entertainment value of college came up. We felt like, “Oh, come on, Monster College.” Then out of that we really got excited about the idea of Mike’s story. That was the thing that made us realize “Oh, here’s the heart of the movie.” So often movies tell the story of “you can be anything you want as long as you never give up”, which is a great theme and a great lesson, however, sometimes that does not work out. It’s just a fact of life, we’ve all been through it, and we felt like no one ever tells the story for those people."