Incredibles 2

[ShyViolet]

So excited about the announcement! Wonder if they'll bring Syndrome back, or maybe focus on a whole new villain! Ahhhh, so awesome!

[Dacey]

[ShyViolet]

LOL!! Did you make that, Dacey?

[Dacey]

No. I wish I could say I did. It comes from Nerd Reactor I think?

[ShyViolet]

Oh, very cool.

[ShyViolet]

So glad Brad Bird is doing it!

[Vernadyn]

I hope he directs it. And as much as I'm looking forward to Tomorrowland, I also would like to see him do another original animated feature soon.

[Ben]

While a sequel to The Incredibles won't be original original, Bird is being very smart when it comes to playing the Hollywood game. Unlike Stanton, who wound up doing a Nemo sequel instead of John Carter 2, you can see the way Bird is mapping out his career in order to do his personal projects.

Jumping into live-action, he didn't try and launch a franchise, he attached himself to a very popular one that rested on the back of a big star name, and not his. As expected, he got a hit, and has been able to parlay that into an original, Tomorrowland. Now that film may or may not be a big hit, but Bird is setting up his insurance: Incredibles 2 is audience anticipated, the studio wants it, and it's as sure fire a thing to a hit that Tomorrowland may or may not be.

He's lining things up very cleverly: should Tomorrowland bomb, he's got his next project up and running and knows he's going to have a certain amount of power behind him once that comes out and is another hit. If Tomorrowland performs okay but not great (as I expect it will do, in the Tron: Legacy realm of numbers), then although he won't really need to do Incredibles 2, the eventual release of that film will add another successful notch on his list.

If Tomorrowland is a huge smash, then the smart money is still on him finishing an Incredibles 2. Why? Because Tomorrowland is the first film to really start selling Bird as a director to the wider public. He knows the audience wants it, and that having two smashes in a row will only give him more ammo to get what he really wants to do - his megabudget San Francisco earthquake picture - off the ground.

Where he is also smart is in announcing this right before Tomorrowland opens, thus generating publicity for his new film, creating audience awareness in himself and a connection between his projects, and stating his intentions up front instead of waiting to see how his box-office turns out and then looking like he *has* to make a second Incredibles just because his movie didn't do well.

Whereas Stanton was convinced he was off on at least a trilogy of films and didn't mind making that clear to anyone who would listen, only to be "asked" to return to the location of his previous big hit when that didn't work out (come on, do you really think we'd be getting Finding Dory if Carter had launched a franchise? And you really think that was his intention when sets and elements for more Carters were left standing and Disney had already booked studio space in the UK, eventually filled by other films?), Bird has taken the very smart approach by announcing his next project now.

Whichever way Tomorrowland swings, things are pointing towards "1906" happening sooner than later...and all because Brad Bird got bit once early on with The Iron Giant and is now as super-smart a Hollywood filmmaker player as he is a writer-director.

[EricJ]

(come on, do you really think we'd be getting Finding Dory if Carter had launched a franchise?

For the very reason Dory was scheduled in the first place (yes, that freakin' Circle again), we would eventually at some point anyway, just not with Stanton.
Don't fall into the trap of thinking "Pixar made all those sequels because they WANTED to!" The sequels we got were good because they didn't want to, and were trying to claw their way back to creativity again.

While a sequel to The Incredibles won't be original original, Bird is being very smart when it comes to playing the Hollywood game.

Also, unlike a certain other sequel-obsessed studio we could name, Pixar doesn't LIKE sequel-sequels.
There always has to be some kind of twist that makes it a completely different entity, to dull the pain of it not being a completely new and original story--Even when Monsters U, Toy Story 3 and Finding Dory were forced on them by legal obligations, and Cars 2 from the top, they went in distinctly different directions from what we were expecting, and worked anyway. (Well, okay, Cars 2, but still, have to admit, we weren't expecting that.)
I still bang heads on tables whenever I hear unimaginative fans saying "Well, they ended it with the Underminer, so what's he going to do in the next film?"--Any who might be saying that, abandon all hope of a job with Pixar.

I'm still putting down bets that we're going to get a

"next generation", where Supers have now been re-legalized, and our senior heroes unpreparedly put in charge of training raw new recruits.

THAT'S an opened-up Pixar Brain-Trust sequel that's got Brad Bird's name all over it.

[ShyViolet]

(come on, do you really think we'd be getting Finding Dory if Carter had launched a franchise?

For the very reason Dory was scheduled in the first place (yes, that freakin' Circle again), we would eventually at some point anyway, just not with Stanton.
Don't fall into the trap of thinking "Pixar made all those sequels because they WANTED to!" The sequels we got were good because they didn't want to, and were trying to claw their way back to creativity again.

While a sequel to The Incredibles won't be original original, Bird is being very smart when it comes to playing the Hollywood game.

Also, unlike a certain other sequel-obsessed studio we could name, Pixar doesn't LIKE sequel-sequels.
There always has to be some kind of twist that makes it a completely different entity, to dull the pain of it not being a completely new and original story--Even when Monsters U, Toy Story 3 and Finding Dory were forced on them by legal obligations, and Cars 2 from the top, they went in distinctly different directions from what we were expecting, and worked anyway. (Well, okay, Cars 2, but still, have to admit, we weren't expecting that.)

Uh huh. So, unlike that "other studio", MU had the stunningly unique plot of someone wanting to be a top scarer, and TS3's plot line involving the worry of where Woody and the gang would end up was a radical departure from TS2. (By the way, I love TS3 and I really liked MU). And Hiccup's new purpose in leading his tribe without his dad as well as his reunion with his mother was just the same old same old stuff we saw in HTTYD.

Just saying.

[droosan]

"Well, they ended it with the Underminer, so what's he going to do in the next film?"

If the Underminer doesn't at least make a cameo appearance, they'll have to cast John Ratzenberger as another character.


Sadly, Elizabeth Maria Peña -- the voice of Mirage -- passed away only a few months ago.

[EricJ]

If the Underminer doesn't at least make a cameo appearance, they'll have to cast John Ratzenberger as another character.

The UM is not exactly what you'd call a fearsome, professional villain, so I'm guessing he'll be downgraded to "running gag", like Randall in Monsters U.

[Ben]

Or easily defeated in the opening, thus cementing the official return of the Supers...?

[Dacey]

I somehow see Incredibles 2 taking place years after the first one. To the point where Violet and Dash are young adults.

[LotsoA113]

I somehow see Incredibles 2 taking place years after the first one. To the point where Violet and Dash are young adults.

I've always had this idea that the sequel should take place 20 years into the future, an age where Violet is the world's most well known superhero who must destroy the world's most powerful supervillain: Dash.