Brad Bird ended his 2004 animated family adventure The Incredibles with the perfect set up for a sequel. A new threat in The Underminer (John Ratzenberger) had surfaced, and the Parr family – now embracing their superhero identities – was ready to engage. It’s possible Bird may start with this idea for The Incredibles 2, because the director is starting to reveal how threads from the original movie are definitely influencing his upcoming sequel.
Brad Bird was speaking with ComingSoon at an event to promote the DVD release of Tomorrowland. Naturally, Bird’s upcoming The Incredibles 2 came up, and the director revealed that several ideas he had while working on the original film have helped him shape the overall direction of the sequel. He says:
I had a bunch of ideas that I wanted to put in The Incredibles, but they just didn’t fit. … There were little scenes and things that I was interested in. I wanted to come up with sort of an over-arching idea that connected to the first film that went somewhere different. That’s the one [thing] that took a little more time.
By time, Bird is referring to the 10+ years he waited to return to the Pixar world of The Incredibles to attempt a sequel. In that time, the animated giants have churned out additional stories in their Toy Story, Monsters and Cars universes. They also have created original masterpieces like this summer’s Inside Out (and noble misses like Brave). But Brad Bird had an explanation as to why he took so long to attempt The Incredibles 2, stating to ComingSoon:
I always want to break things up with something else. I know some directors who have done a movie and then, the very next thing they do is the sequel to that movie. … I will always want to break it up with something else and then come back to it.
When, though, will we get to see The Incredibles 2? IMDB has it down for November 16, 2016. And even though Brad Bird recently spoke about Pixar moving his The Incredibles 2 ahead of a planned Cars 3 on the studio’s production schedule, that seems like far too small of a window to create an animated feature on the level of Pixar’s best. The studio has Finding Dory down for June 17, 2016, and Toy Story 4 on the schedule for June 16, 2017. Could 2017 be a year where Pixar has three movies? Or is The Incredibles 2 shipping off to 2018? Stay tuned.
