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For a while now, Pixar has been trying to capture its old magic by returning to its old, magical IP. But can it work without the lead magician at the helm? On Tuesday, we got an update on The Incredibles 3, which has long been on the radar if not in active development. But the third installment of Pixar’s superhero series will not be directed by Brad Bird, the writer-director of the first two movies. Instead, the Disney subsidiary has tapped Elemental‘s Peter Sohn to take the lead on the threequel, per The Hollywood Reporter.
Bird is, at least, writing the screenplay for Incredibles 3, which he will also produce alongside Dana Murray (Soul). Still, fans are sure to be disappointed that he’s not the one at the steering wheel for the third film. Though he’s got plenty of other notable work under his belt (The Iron Giant, Ratatouille, Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol), The Incredibles in particular has Bird’s fingerprints all over it (and his literal voice, in the form of Edna Mode). The first film was a critical and commercial success and won the Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards. The second film “lacks the straightforward resonance of its predecessor,” The A.V. Club‘s A.A. Dowd wrote at the time, “But it’s still a sparkling contraption of an animated comedy, funny and often wondrous in its midcentury-modern vision of an alternate America frozen in the amber of a bygone idealism.”
Bird’s influence at Pixar and beyond is unmistakable (the upcoming Fantastic Four: First Steps seems to have taken a page out of The Incredibles‘ retro-futuristic book). But apparently he’s just too busy to direct the next Incredibles. He’s reportedly in pre-production at Skydance on the CG animated sci-fi noir Ray Gunn, a decades-long passion project set to premiere on Netflix in 2026. (Variety claims he’s also working on another long-gestating project, 1906, for Disney.) Per THR, Pixar boss Peter Docter and Bird personally picked Sohn for Incredibles 3. Sohn has worked on all of Bird’s animated films, and Bird has apparently been a mentor for Sohn throughout his career. He also just earned the studio another Academy Award nomination for Elemental, which can’t hurt. But he’s definitely got some incredibly big shoes to fill on this next project.
