While at a 20th anniversary screening of his 1991 comedy western, City Slickers, Billy Crystal talked about the upcoming follow-up, Monsters, Inc. 2, which is in fact a prequel.

The movie, which is more officially titled Monsters University, follows future best buddies Mike Wazowski (Crystal) and James Sullivan (John Goodman) when they were back in college working their way towards jobs at Monsters, Incorporated. At the time, the two aren’t friends but more like rivals before eventually forming the relationship we saw in the original.

Crystal’s voice was going during the event, due to a 5 1/2–hour fourth recording session earlier in the day. Of the movie, he shared “I have to tell you something, it is hilarious. The Pixar people are geniuses. It’s 10 years since the first movie. Yeah, it’s crazy. And it’s a prequel. They’re in college. It’s how they met, it’s how Michael and Sully meet, and plan to become scarers at Monsters, Inc. — so this movie ends where the other one starts.”

He also touched on working with Goodman again, saying “John Goodman is a genius and he’s great and we’re really funny together. We’re having a blast together. It’s really a great script, it’s really funny.”

Finally, Crystal shared a couple minor new details about the movie, revealing that “It’s college pranks with monsters. And I wear a retainer. Mike has a retainer.”

Monsters University will hit theaters in the summer of 2013.

[Source: Hero Complex]