December 3 - Andrew Stanton

Image courtesy of Twitter.com

On this day, in 1965, Andrew Stanton was born in Rockport, Massachusetts. Andrew graduated from CalArts and cut his professional teeth as a writer on the late Eighties television series Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures. In 1990, he became the ninth employee of a fledgling studio named Pixar.

Andrew was only the second animator to be hired by Pixar because they weren't really an animation company at the time. It was all about selling their high-end computer system to produce animation, not necessarily making any themselves. Andrew's job was to make commercials and small pieces of animation that showed off the computer's capabilities. But then the idea for Toy Story came along and changed everything.

Image copyright Disney

Along with John Lasseter, Pete Doctor and Joe Ranft, Andrew helped conceive of the plot of Toy Story and develop it into a script. After Josh Whedon, of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame, contributed some ideas, Andrew took the script and gave it a thorough dialog rewrite. His revisions worked wonders for the film as Toy Story became the first animated movie to be nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar.  Following that success, Lasseter asked Andrew to work on the script for Pixar's second film, A Bug's Life. The film's writers were having a hard time getting the parts with the circus bugs and the regular ants to mesh together. Andrew wrote a draft in a single day that fixed everything up nicely.

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Following A Bug's Life, Andrew headed up the team that wrote Toy Story 2 (he also provided the voice for Emperor Zurg) and then co-wrote the script for Monsters, Inc. Monsters' director, Pete Doctor, credits Andrew with the idea that everything in the monsters' world is powered by screams.

For his next project, Andrew took inspiration from how overprotective of his own son he was and Finding Nemo was born. He co-wrote the script, was given the directorial reins for the first time as well and he once again donned the performer's hat as the voice of the 150 year old sea turtle, Crush. In spite of Michael Eisner's lack of confidence in Nemo, it went on to be the highest grossing film of 2003, became the highest grossing animated film ever after passing The Lion King, earned Andrew another nomination for Best Original Screenplay and won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.

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The success of Nemo gave Andrew the confidence to tackle a far more experimental movie: WALL-E. Even though there isn't any dialog in the first thirty minutes of the film, Andrew knew that if he made them charming enough, audiences wouldn't mind. He co-wrote the script based on an idea he hatched with Pete Doctor and directed WALL-E to another big success, in spite of (or maybe because of) its commentary on issues ranging from obesity to consumerism to the environmental impact humans are having on the planet. The script was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar and Andrew picked up his second Best Animated Feature statue.

Since Disney's official acquisition of Pixar in 2006, Andrew has been the vice president of creativity at Pixar. He's become an executive producer and creative mentor on projects as diverse as Brave, Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur. He was part of the writing team for both Toy Story 3 (earning a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar nomination) and Toy Story 4, coming out next year. Andrew was also the writer and director for Nemo's sequel, Finding Dory, which passed the one billion dollar mark in worldwide ticket sales.

Image copyright Disney

Now before anyone starts thinking that everything Andrew touches turns to gold, I do need to address the blemish on his resume (and it's a big one). He has one live action directing credit to his name so far: a science fiction film based on novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs (think Tarzan) called John Carter. To be fair, many studios had spent decades trying to adapt Burroughs' Barsoom novels for the big screen, including more than one go at it by Disney. Some things are just not meant to be filmed. After spending a total of 350 million dollars (making it one of the most expensive films ever produced), John Carter received decidedly mixed reviews and failed to earn back its budget, even though it set an opening day record in Russia. Disney ended up taking a 200 million dollar write off on the project. Luckily for Andrew, his track record in animation meant he was just embarrassed after that disaster, not unemployed.

Image copyright Netflix

Outside of Disney, Andrew has directed a few things for television, most notably two episodes of Netflix's smash hit, Stranger Things and an episode of AMC's Better Call Saul. He may be trying to sharpen his skills up a bit as he's expressed interest in directing another live action feature, but we'll see about that. Otherwise he continues to shepherd the Disney/Pixar crew in the fine art of animation, looking on proudly at the release of things like Ralph Breaks the Internet.