If you watch almost any Pixar movie closely enough, you will probably, at some point see the code A113 subtly hidden somewhere in the film. (The only Pixar film that doesn’t have a known reference to the number is Monsters, Inc.) The strange four-digit code has also been spotted in big-budget, effects-heavy action movies including The Avengers, Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and others. So, what are filmmakers trying to tell us? As John Lasseter explains, A113 is a tribute to the place where many animators first got their start: “A1-13 was the animation classroom at California Institute of the Arts in the Character Animation Program. Cal Arts is one of the best animation schools…and a lot of the students…as they created films—short films and feature films, they’ve kind of hidden A113 in the movies.” Or maybe, just maybe, that’s what Lasseter wants us to believe. Maybe the code is actually somehow the key to finally unlocking the notorious “Pixar Theory” that places each movie in the same universe …
