Wreck-It Ralph: Interview with Director Rich Moore & Producer Clark Spencer

While I was out in L.A. for the Wreck-It Ralph press day event, I was able to screen an unfinished version of film. All I can say for now is that it's AWESOME. It is my favorite animated movie this year -- and I can't wait to see it again with my family on November 4!

After the screening I sat down with both the director and producer of Wreck-It Ralph, where I learned a little more about how the movie came about, as well as some fun tid-bits, like what didn't make the final cut. Take a look--

Wreck-It Ralph Interview - Director Rich Moore & Producer Clark Spencer

Where did the idea for the movie come from?

Rich Moore:  I started here, working at Disney four years ago, and was invited by John Lasseter, who’s a dear old friend, to develop some ideas for movies; one of which I would direct. There had been a notion of a video game based movie for several years that had not been cracked. And it had been kind of put back on the shelf, about a year before I started here in 2008. When someone brought that up, I thought well that’s pretty interesting. I like video games. You know, I like that type of world. It could be very kind of rich and fun and something that people would enjoy. And without going to kind of the versions that had been done before, I just started with that notion.

And after about two days, I thought this is a really, really bad idea. Because they-- the characters have no life. You know, they just kind of have one thing that they do. They have no free will. They do their same job over and over again every day. Who’s gonna want to watch that? That’s boring. You know, and then-- I took a moment. And I thought, well, what if the main character didn’t like his job, you know? What if everyone else loved their jobs? And the main character didn’t like his job. That would be a fantastic kind of internal conflict for a protagonist to have. It began that simply kind of with the world-- this world of gigantic scope and kind of spectacle.

So this has been four years in the making?

Rich Moore:  About four-- I would say maybe just-- just over three and a half years. Yeah. I started working here November of 2008.

How many video game references are in the film?

Rich Moore:  Hundreds I would say. I don’t know. I mean it’s-- it is just layer upon layer. We start with characters from other games and references to other games. And then, just seeing the other games, seeing the other characters-- we have like graffiti referencing certain things from other games.... there are jokes about other characters and games. And there’s another whole strata of candy references and just kind of-- so there are a lot layers.

Clark Spencer:  I think one of the things we tried to do is make sure that we did it on multiple levels. So there’s graffiti in there. And if you want to look at the graffiti and if it means something to you you’ll enjoy that aspect of it. Otherwise, if you don’t play games, it’s just graffiti in a train station, which you would expect in a train station.

Anybody turn you down?

Clark Spencer:  You know what’s interesting? No one turned us down. What was interesting, in the very beginning when we talked about this idea there was sort of that moment where we realized we’re actually gonna have to go forth and ask companies to license the characters. And there was always that questions of will we be able to do it? And if so, how many characters would be available to come into the film? And we had this moment where we went to E3, and we met with a lot of the gaming companies, Namco specifically. And we pitched the film. And you could see the people got excited about the idea of the movie. And their biggest question was to make sure that their character was put into the film in an organic way that felt like it was their character.

Was there anything that didn't make the final cut?

Rich Moore: Another video game world that in the third act of the movie that was going to, kind of, symbolize Ralph’s lowest point. It was called Extreme Easy Living 2, and it was kind of a combination of the Sims meets Grand Theft Auto. It was really funny … we’re holding onto that one.

Wreck-It Ralph opens in theaters Nov. 2, 2012!!

Special thanks to Walt Disney Pictures for providing me the opportunity to attend the Wreck-It Ralph press day. All opinions are my own.