A Bug's Life is a 1998 American animated comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. It was directed by John Lasseter, written by Andrew Stanton, Donald McEnery, and Bob Shaw, from a story conceived by Lasseter, Stanton, and Joe Ranft, and stars the voices of Dave Foley, Kevin Spacey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Hayden Panettiere. In the film, a misfit anthropomorphic ant named Flik looks for "tough warriors" to save his ant colony from a protection racket run by a gang of grasshoppers. However, the "warriors" he brings back are a troupe of Circus Bugs. The film's plot was initially inspired by Aesop's fable The Ant and the Grasshopper.