Brad Bird on Whether or Not ‘Incredibles 3’ Could Happen

Incredibles 2 spent the entire weekend conquering the box office for Disney and Pixar, earning $180 million in its domestic bow and setting a new record for an animated opening. Of course, after that kind of success, everyone is wondering how long it will be until a sequel is released.

Things aren’t that simple with The Incredibles franchise. The second installment didn’t arrive until 14 years after the original because writer/director Brad Bird didn’t want to return to that world without the right story. Bird has also been very public about his dislike for sequels, and Incredibles 2 was the exception for him, not the rule.

So, could Incredibles 3 actually happen at some point? It looks as though Bird isn’t ready to rule it out, and that’s because a lot of great story from Incredibles 2 was ut during production.

If you recall, back in 2016, Disney switched the release dates of Incredibles 2 and Toy Story 4, moving the former’s release up by an entire year. Bird told EW that this caused some strain on the production.

“You couldn’t linger on,” Bird said. “It’s like the episode of I Love Lucy when she’s got the candies piling up on the conveyer belt. This film was like that. They took a year off our schedule, so if an idea didn’t work quickly, you had to just kill the darling and move onto the next. And I killed like a city full of darlings.”

Those “darlings” he’s referring to are the new superheroes that were introduced in Incredibles 2. We didn’t get to see much of them, but each one was completely unique, and fans are already asking to see more of them.

The original plan was to show more of these new additions, but that opportunity got swept away with the year of production. It’s evident that Bird doesn’t want to see these stories get lost in the shuffle.

“We storyboarded, and we designed characters, and they’re really good! Some of them were really funny and cool and explored certain things,” the director said.. “You know, you never say never, because there might be an opportunity to use it. Maybe the idea shows up in a different film. There was an idea I had for an animated version of The Spirit that I ended up using in The Iron Giant. You never know how these things are going to get repurposed. There were a lot of ideas that we had on this film that could be [used]… whether it’s another Incredibles film, or something else.”

So, you’re saying there’s a chance?! Let’s hope that, if there is another movie set in the Incredibles universe, it doesn’t take 14 more years to hit theaters.

Incredibles 2, written and directed by Brad Bird, is now playing in theaters everywhere.