Trailers

The journey of A Bug’s Life started with a huge question: how to follow up Toy Story? Pixar’s wildly successful feature debut had everyone watching the studio’s next move. The filmmakers knew they couldn’t repeat themselves. They needed a story that would inspire them all over again and wanted a story best told in computer animation. They chose to make a wide-screen epic about an incredibly small world.

Taking off from Aesop’s fable "The Ant and the Grasshopper," A Bug’s Life expanded into the diverse cast of insect characters that became the flea circus. But the filmmakers realized they had too many protagonists to juggle. The story needed a single hero with an empathetic point of view. That’s when the character of Flik got promoted off the anthill.

Flik

Everyone keeps telling Flik to stop questioning tradition and be a good worker ant, but he knows that's not his lot in life. Even when the going gets tough, this resourceful but misguided ant risks everything despite some major setbacks and the prevailing perception that he's a failure.

Princess Atta

Princess Atta often seems aggravated, but you would too if you were ascending to the throne and had to deal with a mean freeloading grasshopper. It takes a few tries for Atta to realize the colony's courage and strength, and to learn to trust her instincts as a leader.

Dot

As the Queen's youngest daughter, Dot proves that size doesn't matter when it comes to being a heroine. The pint-sized princess learns to spread her wings and convinces Flik to return to save the colony.

Queen

The ant colony's miniature monarch has been around the island more than a few times and she's looking forward to retiring and letting Atta take over the throne.

Francis

A member of the circus crew, Francis is the misunderstood male ladybug. To compensate for his mistaken gender, he develops a macho attitude that can only be softened by Ant Island's young Blueberries troop.

Heimlich

This Bavarian caterpillar who can't stomach the idea of a battle is happiest when he's munching on food. For Heimlich, eating large doesn't guarantee a set of large wings—but he loves them just the way they are.

Dim

At first glance he looks like a menacing insect, but Dim has a heart of gold. The lovable rhino beetle appears as the ferocious star of P.T. Flea's circus act, even though he has an extremely low tolerance for pain.

Tuck & Roll

These Hungarian pill bugs don't speak a word of English, but it's no problem when they're getting shot out of a cannon or performing acrobatic routines that always end in fights.

Manny & Gypsy

Manny is a pompous praying-mantis magician who prays for the good old days when audiences responded to his act. His moth mate, Gypsy, requires all eyes on her lovely wings and helps Manny look good in their performances.

Rosie

Her husbands keep dying on her, but that doesn't stop this widowed black widow spider from spinning a (sometimes) successful career as a circus performer—and unlikely "warrior bug."

Slim

Slim is an intellectual walking stick who takes his acting a bit too seriously. He often ponders his fate and wonders if he'll ever be able to break out of his circus role as the stick.

P.T. Flea

P.T.'s a blood-sucking proprietor of a run-down insect circus that features some of the lousiest acts in the history of show business. He's always trying to make the fastest and easiest buck, even if that means setting himself on fire.

Hopper

He's a mean, lean eating machine and can squash an ant's head with his foot if the food's not on the offering stone. Hopper's tough exterior conceals an even tougher interior and a superior intellect.

Molt

This grasshopper with a shedding problem would rather be a stand-up comedian than Hopper's tagalong sibling. Molt also has an unintentional way of messing up his brother's plans.

A world of insects required “a whole lot of wingflaps,” according to Sound Designer Gary Rydstrom. Wingflaps helped convey the characters' personalities, and Rydstrom found himself mixing the sounds of everything from wet paper towels to World War II airplanes to a real dragonfly they found at Skywalker Ranch, which made “a huge and amazing sound.”

Capturing the world from a bug's perspective is no easy task. So Pixar's creative team watched "bug cam" footage—shots of flora and fauna from an insect's point of view. They found that a single clover looked like an enormous tree. Cracked mud resembled the Grand Canyon. But most impressive was the translucency of the bug world. When the sun was out and an insect walked on a leaf, its shadow could be seen through the leaf from below. This stained-glass effect inspired the film's vibrant colors.

Ant Island

Most of A Bug’s Life takes place within a few hundred square feet. The filmmakers got to know the tiny idyllic island “like a live-action set,” said John Lasseter. It was also home to a cast of thousands. The filmmakers had to contend with 400 crowd scenes, ranging from 25 to 1000 ants in each shot. In a first for animated film crowds, each character is unique, fully animated, and clearly acting.

Bug City

Flik’s epic adventure had to lead to somewhere exciting, and the perfect contrast to a pastoral island was a city teeming with exotic insects. In a rare acknowledgement of human presence, the Pixar team created a bustling metropolis out of a garbage pile. It’s here that Flik encounters P.T. Flea’s Circus Troupe. According to Co-Director Andrew Stanton, the inspiration for a multinational flea circus“was the first thing that really felt like us, felt like Pixar.”

The Circus

Garbage can be useful, particularly when you're trying to think of ideas for a bug-scaled circus. By rifling through trash, the artists transformed everyday objects into a miniature scaled version of a recognizable circus. Egg cartons stacked together looked like a grandstand. A broken umbrella, if painted pink and white, had the exact pattern and shape of a circus tent. A thimble looked big enough to serve as a pedestal for a flea. Prop by prop, a circus came together as if assembled by bugs.

Hopper's Hideout

The filmmakers had always seen Hopper’s herd of marauding grasshoppers as a motorcycle gang. An abandoned sombrero became a south-of-the-border hideout where the gang could party and Hopper could nurse his grudge. When the grasshoppers take to the sky bent on revenge, the sound design included motorcycle engines mixed in with the flapping wings.

Vegetation

The Pixar team quickly realized that Mother Nature is a terrific artist. Early in the process, Production Designer Bill Cone crawled on his stomach with a camera for a closer look at the vegetation that would become the film’s architecture. Art Director Tia Kratter spent a year painting natural objects. Their efforts came together in“The Leaf Bridge Test,” a scene that used sophisticated lighting to capture the translucence of a leaf and served as visual inspiration for the film.

Colorscripts

A colorscript is a sequence of small pastel drawings or paintings used to emphasize color in each scene and establish a film's visual language.

There were three ways to think of color in A Bug’s Life, says colorscript creator Bill Cone: What season is it? What time of day is it? And what does the story require—gloom, sunshine, or threatening shadows? From glowing mushrooms and shafts of daylight in the ant’s bunker to the late afternoon lighting scheme for Flik and Atta’s romantic encounters, the colorscript set the tone.

DIRECTED BY
John Lasseter  

CO-DIRECTED BY
Andrew Stanton

PRODUCED BY
Darla K. Anderson, Kevin Reher

ORIGINAL STORY BY
John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Joe Ranft

SCREENPLAY BY
Andrew Stanton, Donald McEnery, Bob Shaw

MUSIC BY
Randy Newman

STORY SUPERVISOR
Joe Ranft

SUPERVISING FILM EDITOR
Lee Unkrich

SUPERVISING TECHNICAL DIRECTORS
William Reeves, Eben Ostby

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Sharon Calahan

PRODUCTION DESIGNER
William Cone

ART DIRECTORS
Tia W. Kratter, Bob Pauley

SUPERVISING ANIMATORS
Glenn McQueen, Rich Quade

SHADING SUPERVISOR
Rick Sayre

SUPERVISING LAYOUT ARTIST
Ewan Johnson

PRODUCTION SUPERVISOR - TECHNICAL
Graham Walters

PRODUCTION SUPERVISOR - EDITORIAL
Bill Kinder

PRODUCTION SUPERVISOR - STORY, ART & LAYOUT
BZ Petroff

EXECUTIVE MUSIC PRODUCER
Chris Montan

"THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE"
Written and Performed by Randy Newman

CASTING BY
Ruth Lambert, Mary Hidalgo-Associate
 

CAST
 

Flik
Dave Foley

Hopper
Kevin Spacey

Atta
Julia Louis-Dreyfus

Dot
Hayden Panettiere

Queen
Phyllis Diller

Molt
Richard Kind

Slim
David Hyde Pierce

Heimlich
Joe Ranft

Francis
Denis Leary

Manny
Jonathan Harris

Gypsy
Madeline Kahn

Rosie
Bonnie Hunt

Tuck & Roll
Michael McShane

P.T. Flea
John Ratzenberger

Dim
Brad Garrett

Mr. Soil
Roddy McDowall

Dr. Flora
Edie McClurg

Thorny
Alex Rocco

Cornelius
David Ossman

Academy Awards
Nominated for Music (Original Musical or Comedy Score):
Randy Newman

Annie Awards
Nominated for Outstanding Achievement
in an Animated Theatrical Feature

Nominated for Outstanding Individual Achievement
for Directing in an Animated Feature Production
John Lasseter & Andrew Stanton

Nominated for Outstanding Individual Achievement
for Production Design in an
Animated Feature Production
William Cone

Nominated for Outstanding Individual Achievement
for Writing in an Animated Feature Production
John Lasseter
Andrew Stanton
Joe Ranft
Don McEnery
Bob Shaw

Ars Electronica
Award of Distinction for Computer Animation / Visual Effects

Blockbuster Entertainment
Award for Favorite Animated Family Movie

Broadcast Film Critics Association
Winner of Critics' Choice Award for Best Family Film
Winner of Critics' Choice Award for Best Animated Feature

Casting Society of America
Winner of Artois Award for
Animated Voice Over
Ruth Lambert

Hollywood Foreign Press Association
Winner of Golden Trailer Award for Best Animation / Family
Craig Murray Production

Golden Globe Awards
Nominated for Best Original Score - Motion Picture
Randy Newman

Grammy Awards
Winner for Best Instrumental Composition
Written for a Motion Picture, Television
or Other Visual Media
Randy Newman, composer

Nominated for Best Song Written for a Motion
Picture, Television or Other Visual Media
"The Time of Your Life"
Randy Newman

Nominated for Musical Album for Children

Nominated for Spoken Word Album for Children

International Press Academy
Winner of Golden Satellite Award for
Motion Picture, Animated or Mixed Media

Los Angeles Film Critics Association
Winner for Best Animation
John Lasseter