Flea, arrives, seeking to rehire them and blowing their cover; the ants exile Flik and the Circus Bugs, and desperately try gathering food for a new offering.

Realizing the deception, Hopper has Flik publicly beaten and proclaims the ants are lowly life forms who live only to serve the grasshoppers.

[8] The storyline for A Bug's Life originated from a lunchtime conversation between John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, and Joe Ranft, the studio's head story team; other films such as Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo and WALL-E were also conceived at this lunch.

[9] During an early test screening for Toy Story in San Rafael in June 1995, they pitched the film to Disney CEO Michael Eisner.

[9][13] After Stanton had completed a draft of the script, he came to doubt one of the story's main pillars – that the Circus Bugs that had come to the colony to cheat the ants would instead stay and fight.

Lasseter agreed with this new approach, and comedy writers Donald McEnery and Bob Shaw spent a few months working on further polishing with Stanton.

[17] For Hopper, the film's villain, Lasseter's top choice was Robert De Niro, who repeatedly turned the part down, as did a succession of other actors.

[18] It was more difficult for animators during the production of A Bug's Life than that of Toy Story, as Pixar's computers ran sluggishly due to the complexity of the character models.

[19] After Lasseter thought it would be useful to look at a view of the world from an insect's perspective, two technicians obliged by creating a miniature video camera on Lego wheels, dubbed the "Bugcam".

Lasseter was intrigued by the way grass, leaves and flower petals formed a translucent canopy, as if the insects were living under a stained-glass ceiling.

[17] The animators also employed subsurface scattering—developed by Pixar co-founder Edwin Catmull during his graduate student days at the University of Utah in the 1970s—to render surfaces in a more lifelike way.

Catmull asked for a short film to test and showcase subsurface scattering and the result, Geri's Game (1997), was attached alongside A Bug's Life in its theatrical release.

[21] During the production of A Bug's Life, a public feud erupted between DreamWorks' Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Pixar's Steve Jobs and John Lasseter.

[24] Both Antz and A Bug's Life center on a young male ant, a drone with oddball tendencies that struggles to win a princess's hand by saving their society.

[10][24] For his part, Katzenberg believed he was the victim of a conspiracy: Eisner had decided not to pay him his contract-required bonus, convincing Disney's board not to give him anything.

[24] Katzenberg was further angered by the fact that Eisner scheduled Bugs to open the same week as The Prince of Egypt, which was then intended to be DreamWorks' first animated release.

Katzenberg made an offer: He would delay production of Antz if Jobs and Disney would move A Bug's Life so that it did not compete with The Prince of Egypt.

[21] Lasseter, who claimed to have never seen Antz, told others that if DreamWorks and PDI had made the film about anything other than insects, he would have closed Pixar for the day so the entire company could go see it.

[29] Although the contention left all parties estranged, Pixar and PDI employees kept up the old friendships that had arisen from spending a long time together in computer animation.

The site's critical consensus reads, "A Bug's Life is a rousing adventure that blends animated thrills with witty dialogue and memorable characters – and another smashing early success for Pixar.

"[68] James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film three and a half stars out of four, saying "A Bug's Life, like Toy Story, develops protagonists we can root for, and places them in the midst of a fast-moving, energetic adventure.

"[69] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three and a half stars out of four, writing "Will A Bug's Life suffer by coming out so soon after Antz?

"[71] Peter Stack of the San Francisco Chronicle gave the film four out of four stars, stating "A Bug's Life is one of the great movies – a triumph of storytelling and character development, and a whole new ballgame for computer animation.

[72] Richard Corliss of Time magazine wrote, "The plot matures handsomely; the characters neatly converge and combust; the gags pay off with emotional resonance.

[79] In the years since its release, A Bug's Life has been regarded by critics and fans to be a Pixar film that, in contrast to its successors, has become largely forgotten by audiences.

[85][86] Critics have generally ranked A Bug's Life to be one of Pixar's weaker releases;[81][84][85][87][88] while it has been seen as "charming",[82][88] as well as an "ambitious" film[89] with pioneering animation for its time,[80][81][89] others have described it as "adequate",[87] and appealing more to a younger demographic.

[90] A game, based on the film, was developed by Traveller's Tales and Tiertex Design Studios and released by Sony Computer Entertainment, Disney Interactive, THQ and Activision for various systems.

[94] GameSpot gave the PlayStation version a 2.7/10, concluding that it was "obvious that Disney was more interested in producing a $40 advertisement for its movie than in developing a playable game.

[99] In the city-building video game Disney Magic Kingdoms, Flik, Atta, Dot, Hopper and Heimlich were added as playable characters, along with the attractions It’s Tough to be a Bug!

and Tuck and Roll's Drive 'Em Buggies, during a limited-time Event in 2024 with a storyline set sometime after Hopper was caught by the bird and before the Circus Bugs left Ant Island.