Earlier today, I got to speak with writer/director Brad Bird for the upcoming release of The Iron Giant: Signature Edition, and while I’ll have plenty on that in the days to come, at the end of our interview we talked about The Incredibles 2.

Bird started writing the script for the film earlier this year, and he provided a brief status update on where he was in the process:

BRAD BIRD: I have the story arc. I’m probably three-quarters through the script, first pass through the script, but we’re already boarding parts of it. I’ve got a lot of people that worked on the first one working on it, so we’re all having a good time with it.

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Image via Disney/Pixar

Regarding a release date, it's still up in the air. But here's what Bird had to say:

BIRD: In terms of the release date, we were originally—Incredibles was supposed to happen after Cars, and our wheels just happened to click a little earlier so they moved us up. Release dates are a little fluid when you’re making films so far in advance. Some films are tougher to come together and tough nuts to crack, and other ones comes together a little more quickly, and so I’m just going to work as fast as I can work well with a relatively small team because I like small teams better until you’ve got everything firmly figured out.

[Update: A representative for Bird reached out to clarify that the release date shuffle Bird was referring to was for how the first Incredibles related to the first Cars, not how Incredibles 2 relates to Cars 3]

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Image via Disney

As for what we can expect from the upcoming sequel, Bird didn’t divulge any plot details (no surprise there), but he did note that there are far more superhero movies out there than there were when The Incredibles was released in 2004:

BIRD: But what’s changed is there were only two other superhero franchises at the time Incredibles came out. One of them was X-Men and the other was Spider-Man, and now there are 400 billion of them and there’s a new superhero movie every two weeks. What you don’t want to do is trot over the same turf in the same way everyone else is. So we’re trying to keep it focused in the area that our film was, which was a little bit more about characters and relationships and stuff like that, and see where that takes us. But we’re having a good time.


It will be interesting to see where Bird goes for his sequel. Even though there are certainly more superhero movies out today than when the original was released, Incredibles had almost a spy movie vibe at times, and I’m curious if that will carry over to a sequel. I’m also interested to see how Bird approaches this family dynamic again and builds on what came before. At the very least, it’s good to know that he didn’t approach doing a sequel lightly and I’m eager to see what he’s come up with.

For more on The Incredibles 2, click here. Be sure to come back for more from my interview with Bird, and definitely check out The Iron Giant: Signature Edition when it returns to theaters on September 30th and October 4th via Fathom Events.

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