The Incredibles was undoubtedly one of the most successful animated films of 2004, grossing an astounding $630 million worldwide and spanning a successful video game and plenty of merchandise.
All in all, the film had acquired profits of more than $800 million, and while the flick’s ending made it seem a sequel was already on the way, it would take Disney 14 years before announcing the release of a follow-up.
Most fans, who fell in love with the film when it first entered theatres in 2004, were stunned to even hear that a second installment was on the way considering how long it took to get production moving, but it seems there was a reason behind the lengthy gap of both movies.
Why Was ‘The Incredibles 2’ Delayed?
Following the release of The Incredibles in 2004, Disney clearly noticed how successful the motion picture became within days of seeing the numbers it had amassed at the box office — and it’s no secret that the Hollywood studio is never shy of wanting to develop a franchise if the first movie is a hit.
Director and writer Brad Bird, who had been working with Disney for several years prior to putting out his biggest project at the time, has since revealed in an interview with The New Paper that the reason why a sequel didn’t follow sooner was that he didn’t feel passionate enough to work on a new script.
During a press run in 2018, he revealed that working on a follow-up to his film wasn’t his main priority after seeing how well his flick had been received with critics and fans around the world.
Bird was also scheduled to commence work on 2007’s Ratatouille, so the 63-year-old had more than enough work on his plate before he could get back into his creative mode and work on an even better film for the second installment of The Incredibles.
But one thing he made absolutely clear was that he was never pressured to release a second film by any means — Disney gave him the assurance that if he wanted to work on a sequel, it was solely up to him on when that was going to happen.
"There wasn't any gun to my head — 'You must do this now.' They (Pixar) were always like, 'When you're ready.' And I finally went, 'I think I'm ready, maybe.’”
“The thing is, many sequels are cash grabs. There’s a saying in the business that I can’t stand, where they go, ‘If you don’t make another one, you’re leaving money on the table.”
Bird knew that The Incredibles had generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for Disney, and while there was no pressure to work on a second film, he did note that while some people would have hoped for him to develop a script soon after the 2004 release of the first movie, he didn’t feel inspired enough to work on another one.
“It’s like, money on the table is not what makes me get up in the morning; making something that people are gonna enjoy a hundred years from now, that’s what gets me up. So if it were a cash grab, we would not have taken 14 years — it makes no financial sense to wait this long — it’s purely (that) we had a story we wanted to tell.”
The good news about such a long wait from Bird’s offering is that the process of working on The Incredibles 2 had already given him a bunch of ideas which he says he could potentially use for a third installment somewhere down the line.
While talking with Entertainment Weekly, the filmmaker gushed that there was a lot of material that hadn’t been used in the sequel, including several characters that didn’t make the cut — but instead of scrapping the development of those individuals, he’s left the door open to perhaps use them for a follow-up flick.
“We storyboarded, and we designed characters, and they’re really good! Some of them were really funny and cool and explored certain things…” he explained.
“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.”
The Incredibles 2 made an astounding $1.2 billion worldwide.
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