Anybody who knows me knows that I love an unused idea that gets left behind. Sometimes, the backstory behind why an idea is left in the trash can can be far more fascinating than the actual finished product (See also: Kingdom of the Sun or American Dog). This fascination isn’t only limited to finished films or theme park attractions however, they can even be simple gag ideas that were left behind.
This is precisely the case with one thing that you WON’T be seeing when you see Inside Out 2 in theaters on June 14th. In the new movie, we once again follow Riley and the team of emotions inside her head. However, everything is about to be turned upside down as Riley enters her teenage years, and Headquarters is making room for a number of new emotions – Anxiety, Embarrassment, Ennui, and Envy.
If you thought that it was as simple as picking out those four emotions early on into the production and rolling with it, you’d be mistaken. Director Kelsey Mann shared that there were a number of emotions that were thought of but didn’t make the final cut.
“Yes, there were lots of emotions that didn't make the cut,” Mann said, “Both for this film and the original film. I started by rewatching every single screening of the first movie, as I just wanted to see if there's any gems that were in there that I could bring back in.”
One that he found – “Schadenfreude” – Which Mann described as “this German character that it, for those of you don't know, it's the feeling that you get, joy at someone else’s expense.” Think of Nelson from The Simpsons.
While Mann didn’t get specific with other emotions on the cutting room floor, he did share that he had a lot more new emotions in the early versions of the story.
“My first pass, my first screening that we did,” he said, “Nine emotions. Nine new emotions showed up. I really wanted joy to feel overwhelmed by all of these new emotions that showed up and I was like, well, let's have a lot show up, and then you couldn't keep track. There were so many emotions, and they all canceled each other out because you couldn't keep up with [them].”
He also shared that he got a little help from a professor at Berkeley, Dacher Keltner. When viewing the list, he told Mann that he had to focus on the emotions that deal with the self-conscious. Mann said that Keltner told him, “We're hardwired at this age to start to become really self-conscious and in part we're doing it because when you're a kid. You've got your parents and your caretakers taking care of you, and eventually you're going to have to take care of yourself. And that's why we're hardwired to, like, push our parents and our caregivers away so that we can become independent people that can take care of ourselves.”
Despite what appears to be a slab of unused emotions that hopefully we find more out about in the future, there is also one solid gag that everyone loved, but didn’t make the final film.
“I'm going to say it, I hesitate because I'm like, it's a good idea and should come back. And I don't know what's going to happen in this world, “ Mann said. “But this needs to come back.”
“We had land called “Procrastination Land, and I love that land and the joke was that it was always under construction and it’s [always] coming soon.”
Mann continued to press the idea, sharing more and proving how much thought went into it. “We had workers. we're like ‘hey, should we start building this land today?’ Nah. they're on their phones, maybe tomorrow.” Mann wasn’t the only fan of the idea, sharing that “It's such a good gag that Riley's crew – they love it. They love it. They're like, ‘please keep procrastination land!’…We showed it [to them] because we boarded it. Still like now, [they say] ‘where's the procrastination?’ And ‘you gotta bring it back.’ And it's such a funny idea. I will hold back one gag of it. I think it's so funny.”
“It's gonna come back, it's gonna come back,” Mann tells us (and himself). “You guys are gonna see Procrastination Land at some point. I just couldn't fit it in in a natural way. It always felt forced, and it also felt – In these movies you just need to make sure you're having forward momentum and procrastination is the opposite of [that]. It makes you sit down so suddenly the movie came to a complete halt and we're like, this is really funny, but it just stopped, you know. But I swear we can make that happen.”
While you won’t see Procrastination Land in Inside Out 2, there is still much more to be seen when the movie arrives in theaters everywhere on June 14th.