Andrew Stanton

Stanton was born in Rockport, Massachusetts. His father, Ron Stanton, was the founder of a company that worked on radars for the United States Department of Defense. His mother, Gloria Stanton, pursued an acting career before becoming a homemaker. Both of Stanton's parents were natives of nearby Wellesley. Stanton acted in high school and directed sketch comedy shot on Super 8 film. Stanton studied for a year at the University of Hartford before transferring to the character animation program at the California Institute of the Arts. In 1989, Stanton married his high school sweetheart Julie, two weeks after she graduated from Georgetown University. Stanton revealed in 2012 that he was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder when he was in the middle of writing John Carter. Stanton is an Arsenal F.C. fan, and included a scene mimicking their famous offside trap among other Arsenal references in John Carter. ==Career==

Stanton began his career in animation in the late 1980s. He worked as an animator for Kroyer Films, and one of his early gigs involved animating sperm for a sex-ed film with Martin Short called The Making of Me, originally produced for Disney's Wonders of Life pavilion. After being rejected by Disney three times, Stanton was hired by Pixar's animation group in 1990 as its second animator (John Lasseter being the first) and ninth employee. Stanton, Lasseter and Pete Docter drafted the original treatment for Toy Story, which bore little resemblance with the eventually finished film. After production of the film was shut down in late November 1993 following a disastrous test screening, Stanton retreated into a windowless office and extensively reworked the script with help from Joss Whedon. The resulting screenplay was nominated at the Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay, the first nomination in that category for an animated film. Following his work on Toy Story, Stanton would go on to direct Finding Nemo, WALL-E, and Finding Dory for Pixar. In an interview with World Magazines Megan Basham, Stanton explained his singular vision for WALL-E: Stanton co-wrote Toy Story 4, which was released on June 21, 2019. Initially, when he pitched the idea to director Josh Cooley, Cooley was concerned feeling like Toy Story 3 was the perfect ending. Stanton reportedly told Cooley "Toy Story 3 was a good ending--but it's not the ending." He explained that it was not the ending of Woody's story but rather the ending of Woody's time with Andy. Stanton reportedly started writing Toy Story 4 in secret while the third film was still in production. In 2020, it was announced that Stanton was in talks to direct and write Chairman Spaceman for Searchlight Pictures and Simon Kinberg's production label, Genre Films. The film is based on The New Yorker short story of the same name by Thomas Pierce. The film would mark Stanton's third venture into the science fiction genre, following WALL-E and John Carter. Stanton has been quoted many times saying that science fiction is his favorite genre. Films like Star Wars, Blade Runner, Aliens, as well as Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel, Princess of Mars, helped shape his interest in the genre. The same year, Stanton was attached to direct Revolver, a romantic comedy starring Maya Hawke and Ethan Hawke from a screenplay by Kate Trefry. In 2022, it was announced that Stanton would direct In the Blink of an Eye (2026) for Searchlight Pictures from a screenplay by Colby Day. In 2024, Docter announced that Stanton would write and direct the fifth main installment of the Toy Story series, Toy Story 5, which is scheduled for release on June 19, 2026. ==Filmography==

Films Short films TV episodes and specials Video games Theme parks Other credits ==Collaborations (Acting)==

Andrew Stanton has cast certain actors and crew members in more than one of the films he has directed. ==Award and nominations==

Academy Awards ==Preservation==

Two of Stanton's short films, A Story and Somewhere in the Arctic..., were preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012. ==References==