After the worldwide success of Toy Story, Pixar was under tremendous pressure to
produce a second successful movie or be labeled a one hit wonder. And so,
A Bug’s Life came into being.
The circumstances surrounding the release of A Bug’s Life and Dreamwork’s first movie Antz, is a case study proving that Pixar develops exceptional stories. Lasseter had had the idea of a Bug’s Life for several years, and a year before the realease of Toy Story Pixar went into preproduction of A Bug’s Life. Shortly before Toy Story was released in Theatersthe Disney executive who had worked the most closely with Pixar, Kratzenburgleft Disney to start his own company, Dreamworks. The friendship between the two companies soured when Dreamworks announced it would be making an animated movie called Antz, a movie remarkable similar in plotline to Pixar’s A Bug’s Life, and they would be releasing it almost two months before A Bug’s Life. Most of the people working at Pixar believed that Dreamworks had stolen their idea. But they had nothing to worry about. Antz, though rated highly by critics,in the long run its dark tone could not compete with Pixar’s lush and child friendly film. A Bug’s Life made over twice the amount that Antz had made and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score. The film is still beloved today. Despite Antz’s earlier release date and star power, Woody Allen stared as voice of the protagonist and Steven Steilburg along with Kratzengurg was involved in the movie’s making, A Bug’s Life had a more appealing story, and the auidences responding to that. As Lasseter himself said when he learned that Dreamworks was producing Antz “If we focus on making entertaining films we have nothing to worry about”