Deadline’s annual Read the Screenplay series, which celebrates the craft of scriptwriting by offering exclusive access to the buzziest movie scripts of awards season, kicks off its latest edition with Inside Out 2. Pixar and Disney‘s sequel is the Envy of the box office in 2024, grossing $1.698 billion globally to become the year’s highest-grossing movie to date.
Meg LeFauve, one of the writers on 2015’s Inside Out, which went on to nab an Original Screenplay Oscar nomination and won for Best Animated Feature, returned to pen the sequel with Dave Holstein, based on an original story by LeFauve and Kelsey Mann. Mann directed, taking the reins from the original’s co-directors and her fellow co-writers Pete Docter and Ronnie Del Carmen.
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The sequel’s script picked up a now 13-year-old Riley (the voice of Kensington Tallman), who is experiencing a parade of new emotions that play out in her brain’s headquarters. The original pic focused on the relationship between Joy and Sadness, but now it’s Joy versus Anxiety who face off as more complex emotions and feelings emerge with Riley growing up.
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Inside Out 2 returned original emotions voice cast Amy Poehler, Lewis Black and Phyllis Smith, with Maya Hawke (Anxiety), Aye Edebiri (Envy) and Tony Hale (Fear) among those joining the party in Riley’s noggin.
Disney released Inside Out 2 in mid-June, opening to $154.2 million at the domestic box office and becoming the biggest global animation opening of all time with $292 million in that first frame. It needed just 19 days to hit $1 billion worldwide, becoming the first animated film to cross that threshold. It now sits as the highest-grossing animated film of all time globally, the highest-grossing Pixar film of all time and is currently No. 8 on the all-time global box office list.
Click below to read the script that made it happen.