‘Incredibles 2’: Brad Bird On Finally Returning To The Parr Family

Writer/director Brad Bird and producer John Walker admit that Bird’s been pretty busy as a filmmaker of both animated and live-action films, a fact that kept the filmmaker from returning to the Pixar franchise that he launched. But Bird always expected hat one day he’d return to the world of the Parr family for “The Incredibles 2.”

“This was an idea I wanted to come back to because the most fun I’ve had making a movie in my whole career is making the first ‘Incredibles,’” Bird tells ComicBook.com. “Because I got to take an idea from zero to finished, and that’s the only time I’ve gotten to do that. ‘Iron Giant’ was based on a book, ‘Ratatouille’ was Jan Pinkava’s idea and I came on later, ‘Mission Impossible’ is ‘Mission Impossible,’ and ‘Tomorrowland’ was Damon Lindelof and Jeff Jensen’s baby and I kind of got mesmerized by that idea. So this is the first one I’ve been able to get built from scratch, so it’s very personal to me, even though it looks like a very popcorn movie – and IS – it’s strangely personal to me.”

Bird also reveals the joys of the creative experience in having new and exponentially more sophisticated technological tools to play with on the new film, a roster of fresh new characters and as a new generation of animators who grew up on the first “Incredibles” film, and Walker points out they were able to do things they only dream of on the original.

In Incredibles 2, Helen Parr (Holly Hunter) is called on to lead a campaign to bring Supers back, while husband Bob (Craig T. Nelson) navigates the day-to-day heroics of “normal” life at home with Violet (Sarah Vowell), Dash (Huck Milner) and baby Jack-Jack, whose superpowers are about to be discovered.

Their mission is derailed when a new villain emerges with a brilliant and dangerous plot that threatens everything. But the Parrs don’t shy away from a challenge, especially with Frozone (Samuel L. Jackson) by their side.

New to the series are Sophia Bush as Voyd, Jonathan Banks as Rick Dicker, and Bob Odenkirk and Catherine Keener as Winston and Evelyn Deavor, respectively.

Incredibles 2 is in theaters now.