Brad Bird talks bringing the Parr family back for more in Incredibles 2

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

The Avengers aren't the only super-powered group to team up this year, as Brad Bird's much-anticipated sequel to THE INCREDIBLES will bring Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson), Elastigirl (Holly Hunter), Dash (Huck Milner), Violet (Sarah Vowell), and Jack-Jack back for more grand adventures. It's been fourteen years since we were first introduced to the Parr family, but as INCREDIBLES 2 will be picking up pretty much immediately where the first film left off, it will be like no time has passed at all.

Brad Bird returned to write and direct INCREDIBLES 2, and he recently spoke with Fandango about how the story began to come together and why it took so long.

I had a notion that I thought was worth building from, which was that Helen would get the assignment rather than Bob. And I knew that I had an unwrapped present from the first movie, which was that the audience knew that Jack-Jack had powers, but the family did not. So those two things were pretty much my idea from about the end of the first film, when I was going out and promoting it. I had those notions in my brain. And then it was a lot of … I think that I thought I have a movie worth doing, and then we got going on it and the story line that I was originally interested in didn't quite serve the rest of the story – the family part – as well as it could have. So, I bailed on it and came up with another one. You can have enough of an idea to get you started but that doesn't always mean that you stay completely with that idea. I think that movies change as they grow. And you either surrender yourself to it or you fight it. And it's much better to surrender yourself and follow the story where it wants to go.

Although the sizeable gap between films would suggest that Brad Bird was reluctant to return, the director stated that he had always planned to bring the Parr family back, but he just had other projects which he wanted to develop first. "I always wanted to return to the family, but it wasn't like I did other projects because I couldn't come up with something for Incredibles 2. I had other things that I was interested in, that I wanted to do," Bird said. "And the toying around with another Incredibles was just sort of in my mind along with a lot of other things that I wanna do. So, it wasn't like a did these other things because I didn't have an idea for The Incredibles. It was more like, I just wanna tell all kinds of different stories and that was one of them." As the first film was released before the comic-book movie explosion, it will be interesting to see how INCREDIBLES 2 stacks up now that our super-hero cup runneth over. Although Brad Bird admits that there was an initial desire to provide a little bit of commentary on that subject, they decided to keep the focus on their own little INCREDIBLES universe. As for the future, well, Brad Bird isn't about to rule out a third INCREDIBLES movie, but he's also not rushing out to do it. In another fourteen years maybe?

I have not thought about it and I do not welcome thinking about it for a while. I just got this one heading out the door so the last thing I wanna think about is another one. And it's not that I don't love the characters. I absolutely do, but I gotta do something else for a little bit. Cleanse my palate.

The official synopsis for INCREDIBLES 2:

Everyone’s favorite family of superheroes is back in Incredibles 2 – but this time Helen (voice of Holly Hunter) is in the spotlight, leaving Bob (voice of Craig T. Nelson) at home with Violet (voice of Sarah Vowell) and Dash (voice of Huck Milner) to navigate the day-to-day heroics of “normal” life. It’s a tough transition for everyone, made tougher by the fact that the family is still unaware of baby Jack-Jack’s emerging superpowers. When a new villain hatches a brilliant and dangerous plot, the family and Frozone (voice of Samuel L. Jackson) must find a way to work together again—which is easier said than done, even when they’re all Incredible.

INCREDIBLES 2 will hit theaters on June 15, 2018.