"Inside Out 2" Is A Box Office Hit, So Here Are 14 Genuinely Fascinating Facts About The Film
Inside Out 2 is a box office hit. According to Variety, the film, which premiered in theaters on June 14, is this year's highest-grossing North American film release. It's brought in $285.7 million, surpassing Dune: Part Two's $282 million.
The film's success is a significant win for Pixar, which released the first Inside Out film in 2015 and has recently been betting on sequels and prequels to mixed results.
For Inside Out 2, Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Tony Hale), Disgust (Liza Lapira), and Anger (Lewis Black) are all back to help Riley navigate a new challenge: becoming a teenager and handling the arrival of new emotions Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos), and Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser).
So, whether you're fresh off seeing Inside Out 2 for the first time or have already returned to the theater for a repeat viewing, here are 14 behind-the-scenes facts about the film that might make you appreciate the movie even more than you already do:
1.Inside Out 2 director Kelsey Mann came up with the idea for the sequel after looking at his childhood birthday photos.
"From the very beginning, I wanted to make a movie that was about dealing with that thought in your head that you're not good enough," he told the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, noting that the inspiration came after looking at childhood birthday photos of himself. He noticed he had "the biggest smile" on his face during his 5th birthday; however, on his 13th birthday, his smile had "diminished."
"I was just sitting there staring at the cake. I looked miserable, and it was such a contrast from when I was 5. I was like, 'What happened?!'" Kelsey said.
2.There are 27 emotions that have been considered as characters for the Inside Out films.
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, identified "27 varieties of reported emotional experience" in a 2017 study. According to a 2015 Hollywood Reporter article, 27 emotions were considered for the first film.
3.The filmmakers decided to focus on "the self-conscious emotions" for the sequel.
Kelsey also told the Academy that Dacher Keltner, who co-authored the UC-Berkeley study and served as an emotional expert for the first film, was brought back to help with the sequel.
"I immediately brought him in, and I was like, 'Okay, who drives at this age?'" Kelsey said. "He said, 'It's all the self-conscious emotions, Kelsey. At this time, it's all about social comparison.' I was like, 'Oh my gosh, that's totally what I did. I can see that in myself and in my kids. It's just what we're hard-wired to do.'"
4.Of the new emotions, Anxiety "took the longest" to design.
"Anxiety took the longest. That was a really hard one, in part because her character changed a lot. She was always the antagonist in the film, but in the earlier versions of the movie, she was really antagonistic," Kelsey told AMPAS.
5.Conversely, Ennui was the easiest and inspired by "a wet noodle."
"If you asked me who was the easiest, I would say Ennui was pretty quick. I remember a story artist, Dan Park, drew Ennui as a wet noodle, and I was like, 'Dude, that's it. That's the feeling I want.' Then, I worked with Jason Deamer, our production designer, and his team and they took that idea and took it even further. We did a physical sculpt of that character, too, and it was fantastic. She still had her challenges — every design has certain challenges — so I wouldn't say she was easy to design, but she definitely came the fastest," Kelsey continued to AMPAS.
6.Schadenfreude almost appeared as an emotion in the sequel.
![<div><p>"He was like this German character, and Fear hit his head on something. He was like, 'Your [sic] pain amuse me,' in a German accent," Kelsey told <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C8Pi792pZJ4/?hl=en" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" data-ylk="slk:IMDB;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas" class="link ">IMDB</a>; however, the character ultimately didn't make the cut.</p></div><span> Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection</span>](https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/3fLp_J.8FW0Sz7_.OD9ewQ--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTQwMg--/https://media.zenfs.com/en/buzzfeed_articles_778/01bbb9da1cea3f0c075f1abb8fc278a2)
"He was like this German character, and Fear hit his head on something. He was like, 'Your [sic] pain amuse me,' in a German accent," Kelsey told IMDB; however, the character ultimately didn't make the cut.
7.Similarly, Jealousy was at one moment Envy's twin.
"They were identical twins that no one could tell apart, and people kept getting confused about. But then we did the research, and they really are different emotions so it didn't make much sense. So we went back and just kept Envy," producer Mark Nielsen also told IMDB.
8.Procrastination Land was also considered for the film as a new Island of Personality, like Goofball, Friendship, Hockey, Honesty, and Family Islands.
"Oh, it was so fun. But it didn't add to the story. It didn't add to Joy's journey or Riley's or Anxiety's. You start to understand: we want to be with these emotions. And we care more deeply for Anger and Fear and Disgust. It's about Riley. What do we need to tell their story?" screenwriter Meg LeFauve told IndieWire.
9.The Equalizer's Liza Lapira took over for Mindy Kaling as Disgust.
10.Similarly, Tony Hale took over for Bill Hader as Fear.
Entertainment news outlet Puck reported that Mindy and Bill did not return for the sequel due to compensation. Neither Mindy nor Bill have publicly addressed their reason for not appearing in the new film.
11.Ahead of the big anxiety attack scene, the cinematographers made minor visual adjustments to signify that "Riley's putting more and more pressure on herself."
"We started doing a lot of things like tightening up the shutter angle, so, suddenly, everything's a lot sharper and the focus got a lot deeper as Riley's putting more and more pressure on herself," co-cinematographer Adam Habib, who worked alongside Jonathan Pytko, told Variety. "Then, when the anxiety attack hits, suddenly we flip everything. The focus goes extremely shallow and the world drops away."
12.Maya Hawke modified her breathing while filming Anxiety's attack scene.
Monica Schipper / The Hollywood Reporter via Getty Images, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection
Maya told Variety that her personal experience with anxiety attacks informed how she voiced Anxiety, specifically during the scene where her character loses control. "I saw it as the air not going down into her breath. It was like a tornado, and you can't breathe when you're stuck in the middle of a tornado," she said.
13.Ayo Edebiri wanted Envy's voice to have a "Gollum-y" and "Muppet-y" bend when she gets excited.
Ayo Edebiri said on The Tonight Show that, when she began meeting with the Pixar team to play Envy, they explained the character was small and adorable. "I love the idea of the voice being very light and coming from a softer place in my voice," Ayo said. "But also, when she gets excited, it gets very...Gollum-y. Get's a little Muppet-y at points." As you'll recall, Gollum is a character in The Lord of the Rings.
14.Finally, voicing Joy is "healing work" for Amy Poehler.
Michael Buckner / Variety via Getty Images, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures / courtesy Everett Collection
"Doing the voice work feels like healing work to me. The content touches me so deeply as a grown woman, and it touches the young child inside of me," she told the Hollywood Reporter. "This second one digs into the idea that at a certain age, new emotions like anxiety show up and everything becomes complicated and you become status-driven. You start to feel almost nostalgic for the easier, more basic emotions like sadness and fear."
