5 Reasons Why Pixar Needs To Do Incredibles 3
There’s been a number of interesting comments regarding Pixar’s future lately. One of the things that surprised me about some of this, there’s been no announcement on a third Incredibles film. That’s strange to me because I think a third Incredibles film is exactly what Pixar needs. Here are FIVE reasons why Pixar NEEDS to do Incredibles 3.
- REASON #1: Beloved Franchise: As for now, we have two films in The Incredibles franchise. The original film is one of the classic Pixar films, it’s a film that came out when Pixar was on top and legendary. Pixar had a fantastic streak of films going from 1995 to 2010. The Incredibles is one of the movies that came out in that era. It’s a movie that everybody loves, there’s not too many people that dunk on that movie. In Pixar rankings, it’s always ranked very high. For me, it’s my favorite Pixar film. I love it, I think it’s fantastic. It took us 14 years to get a sequel that was also very good. Not quite as good as the original film, but it’s hard to top it. They delivered a very solid sequel that’s enjoyable and has a lot of what I loved about the first film present in it. The second film, a bit more polarizing then I’d expect it to be. A lot of people were disappointed by the film, and didn't think it was as good as they hoped it would be. But there’s still a whole lot of people who love that film. I’ve heard people say that it’s better than the original film. The Rotten Tomato scores for both films are in the 90s. One of the things that makes both films work so well is how quotable they are. The first movie has so many iconic lines that are fun to quote to your friends. Whether that’s “where’s my super suit” or “we’ll get there when we get there”. Just iconic, classic Pixar quotes. The characters are iconic, the set pieces are iconic. The first film has stood the test of time.
- REASON #2: More Stories to Tell: I’d argue that the original film is the best original superhero movie of all time. It’s the best superhero movie not based on a Marvel or DC comic book. It came out when Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy was going. It was the year after X2: X-Men United came out. But it does pre-date the MCU by a few years. All these years later, it’s a film that stands out in the genre. Brad Bird has this 1960s James Bond vibe over the entire thing. It feels different inside of the genre and other Pixar movies. Inherently with it being a superhero movie, there’s more stories to tell. The second one picks up right where the first one ends. If they do a third film, you can set it 10 years after Incredibles 2 and tell a very different story. Where now Jack-Jack is in elementary school. Dash and Violet are in high school and college. The dynamics between the family will be very different because of it. There’s more world building that you can do, you can introduce new superheroes into the mix. There’s so many other stories you can tell in this world. Something like Finding Nemo doesn't really warrant a sequel and I think that’s why Finding Dory doesn’t work as well. There’s not more stories to tell in that world, it’s the complete opposite with The Incredibles. As I’m talking about this, I’m thinking of a pitch for a third film and exploring all of these different ideas. Built into the plot of the first film is whether or not superheroes can be trusted, you can take it to a whole other level that’s different because Dash and Violet are involved now.
- REASON #3: New Energy in Superhero Genre: Over the last couple of years, it seems pretty clear thanks to box office and overall excitement that comic books movies aren’t what they were in the 2010s. They don’t get people excited like they used to. The word “fatigue” has gone around a lot when describing comic book movies. I think by doing a third Incredibles film, it can get people excited about superhero movies. People are burned out on the MCU, because the overall quality has dropped since Endgame came out. People didn’t really care about the 2023 DCEU movies because it was being rebooted. Just because the DCEU didn’t work, doesn’t mean fans weren’t excited for DC movies. The Batman, just shy of $800 million. Joker (2019) only R-rated movie to make $1 billion. The MCU’s quality drop is present, Deadpool and Wolverine might make $1 billion. People are more burned out on mediocre comic book movies. With Pixar’s fantastic track record, it’s almost guaranteed that Incredibles 3 will be great. Like I said earlier, it feels very different from other superhero movies. It’s not made by the same studios as the other ones. They get great talent for their movies, obviously with Brad Bird writing and directing. I feel like Incredibles 3 can very easily bring back this spark of excitement for superhero movies, Pixar just needs to greenlight it and make it happen.
- REASON #4: Safe and Necessary Sequel: A couple weeks back I shared a blog post talking about comments that Pixar has made in late May, early June and it left me very frustrated with Pixar’s strategy especially with the announcement of Toy Story 5. In these quotes they talked about how they want to do more safe bets and sequels. So that’s why they announced Toy Story 5, they know it’s a brand that people love and know. When I was reading this my thought was why not Incredibles 3. It checks off all of the boxes that Toy Story 5 does. But they did announce they’re rebooting The Incredibles, which is stupid. Doing Incredibles 3 will be a guaranteed hit film. Incredibles 2 made $1.2 billion at the box office, it’s the highest grossing Pixar film to date. I believe it has one of the three biggest openings for an animated movie. It made a lot of money because people were excited about it. I don’t know if Incredibles 3 will make the quite the splash that Incredibles 2 made. But it’ll make a lot of money, it’ll be one of Pixar’s highest grossing movies to date. If Pixar wants to make more safe films, films they know will make a lot of money. Incredibles 3 is a perfect example of it and it’s probably more wanted than Toy Story 5 is.
- REASON #5: Brad Bird: Brad Bird is one of my favorite directors of all time. His track record with movies is pretty incredible (see what I did there). He’s directed three great Pixar films, The Incredibles, Incredibles 2, and Ratatouille. He directed the cult classic, The Iron Giant. He did Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, which a lot of people have as the best film in the franchise. His only real miss is Tomorrowland, I haven’t seen it but I’ve heard it’s fine and ok. His track record with movies is great, so it’s basically a lock that Incredibles 3 with Brad Bird back to write and direct, will be another great movie. Even if you don’t trust Pixar right now, you can trust Brad Bird. Plus, he hasn’t written or directed a movie since Incredibles 2, that was six years ago. His next movie is called Ray Gunn, an original musical that he announced in 2019 but still doesn’t have a release date. Maybe that’s taking up his time and why they haven’t announced Incredibles 3 sooner. I would love to see another Brad Bird movie in theaters, he’s a great director and Incredibles 3 will be a great film for him to do.
Comments