With Pixars Up claiming first place at the box office in its second weekend  its just behind Star Trek in terms of the highest two-week tally for 2009 congratulations are in order for the films director, Pete Docter. Instead of kudos, Docter and his next project are making headlines today: a sequel to his first Pixar feature, Monsters Inc. Speculative rumors of a Monsters Inc. 2 have been floating around for awhile, but were now one step closer to official confirmation thanks to Disney expert Jim Hill.

In his coverage of Licensing International Expo 2009, Hill reports that licensing buyers were told of the sequel, though they were also apparently supposed to keep the news a secret. Of course now that the information has been leaked, along with Docter’s Up success, we can likely expect a formal announcement from Pixar very soon. I also expect that well see such an announcement accompanied by some sort of defense for the animation studios continued interest in franchising its films. Considering that Pixar was initially against the idea of sequels, a lot of people will likely be critical of such a seemingly submissive and creatively bankrupt direction for the Disney-owned animation studio to take.

Technically, a feature follow-up to Monsters Inc. wont be the first sequel to the 2001 hit. The Oscar-nominated short film Mikes New Car was included as a bonus feature on Monsters Inc. home video releases. Although no plot ideas were revealed with the news leak, there are numerous possibilities for the further adventures of Mike and Sulley (voiced by Billy Crystal and John Goodman in the original film), as indicated by that hilarious supplemental cartoon.

Personally, I prefer to see Pixar not go the Toy Story franchise route as good as that has been so far by having the monsters reunite with the original films little girl Boo, now all grown up. At the end of Monsters Inc., Sulley rebuilds the door that serves as a gateway between the girls bedroom and Monstropolis, hinting strongly that the friendship not to mention the franchise will continue. Then again, linking the guys up with an entirely new kid, perhaps even a child of grown-up Boo, could be too much of a repeat. Pixar will have to walk a fine line if they intend to stick to their mantra of only doing a sequel is theres a good story for it.