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Directed by: Brad
Bird
Written by: Brad Bird
Music by: John Barry
Production Started on: April 15, 2002
Released on: November 5, 2004
Running Time: minutes
Budget: $92 million
Box-Office: $ in the U.S., $ million worldwide
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Mr. Incredible... Craig T. Nelson
The main arch-nemesis... Samuel L. Jackson
E, the costume designer... Brad Bird
Jerry Springer... Jerry Springer (unconfirmed cameo)
Violet, the invisible goth daughter
And Jason Lee, Holly Hunter, Wallace Shawn and John Ratzenberger
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The movie will follow the adventures of a dysfunctional family of high-profile
superheroes; Mom, Dad, superpowered kids and possibly grandparents. The
Incredibles are a family of superheroes trying to live a quiet life in
the suburbs (placed there by the Witness Protection program to hide them
from one of their supervillains) who find themselves called into action
to save the world, led by the pater familias, Mr. Incredible, whose better
days as a superhero appear to be behind him. The comedic spin comes into
play when their family disagreements start manifesting during their superpowered
battles with bad guys. What are you supposed to do when your superpowered
teenage daughter starts to date the son of your arch-nemesis, and the juvenile
delinquent has x-ray vision? There's talk of even including a cameo from
Jerry Springer as he shows the audience some really dysfunctional superheroes.
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The original title
for this project was already The Incredibles, but an online rumor
stated that it was temporarily changed to The Invincibles until
April 2002. However a source very close to production told Animated Movies
that the title always remained the same since Brad Bird conceived and developed
the idea and story for The Incredibles in 1993.
In February 2000,
when Brad Bird signed a deal to come work for Pixar Animation, speculation
was rampant about the projects Bird would be working on. It was confirmed
in August 2001 that the movie, then known as The Invincibles, was
in full-blown development in Pixar, with Bird slated to direct and co-write
the project. It was picked over another project Brad Bird was developping
entitled Ray Gunn (a detective story set in an ultra-futuristic
city).
This project
was in the design stage in 2001, with Pixar's art/storyboard department
working hand-in-hand with the company's research and development department,
testing out how they can push the animation to the next level. The art
team is really pumped about working with Bird on The Invincibles
after seeing what kind of magic he created on The
Iron Giant, and that they're "...learning a lot about storytelling."
Animator Michel
Gagné mentioned on his Web site
that Pixar flew him over on November 14 and 15, 2001 in order to "consult
on Brad Bird's new movie. I sat down with the art director, the technical
directors and Brad and talked about designing stylized FX for his new movie.
I had a look at the reels and brainstormed with the team. Very busy 2-day
schedule. Everyone was super nice. (...) Looks like I will be back to Pixar
sporatically to design and animate on Brad's picture."
An April 2002
press release described the newly retitled The Incredibles as "a
fantastic new action-adventure comedy: in this clever comedy, a family
of undercover superheroes, struggling to live a quiet suburban life, is
forced into action to save the world."
The early buzz
on the movie is already very positive according to the Z
Review, as Pixar insiders feel it "will come close to attaining the
heights of Toy Story 1 and 2."
Brad Bird brought
his own 2D team to work on this CG project, which generated some internal
frictions at Pixar that have been hurting the movie's production according
to a January 2003 post by 'drawer'. The problem? The artists from the 2D
Iron
Giant are not 3D experts, and the older Pixar artists are not willing
to help and reveal their "CG modeling secrets" to the traditional animators
unless they also become part of Brad's team. "So everytime [Brad] would
ask some of the Pixar CG modelers to model a design they tell him that
'it can't be done, its too complex, too hard to model'. When Brad goes
out of the studio and tries to hire people that think outside the box,
Pixar doesn't want to bring in outsiders, they want Brad to use the staff
Pixar already has. The current Pixar staff doesn't want to help Brad's
team create great new groundbreaking CG designs, THEY want to do it. THEY
want in on Brad's team. I'm not saying its so bad that people just hate
each other, but there definitely is some tension there behind closed doors."
Steve Jobs announced
during Pixar's earnings press conference in February 2003 that "early animation
on
The Incredibles [is] looking, incredible, like nothing anyone
has ever seen before. You'll be able to see a glimpse of it yourself when
we release a teaser trailer for The Incredibles with Finding
Nemo's theatrical release on May 30th."
'BobV' wrote
in March 2003 at Animation
Nation that he "just saw some stuff from this film today, including
some animation tests and a rough version of the teaser due out soon. It
is *awesome*. I cannot wait for this one. Tony Fucile did the designs on
Incredibles
[with Teddy Newton] and much of Iron Giant.
The guy is simply one of the very best in the industry, and a really nice
guy to boot. The character design on this film is a real departure from
the 'standard' Pixar fare, as is the animation philosophy. The facial animation
alone is a huge step forward. And the teaser is hilarious. Pixar has raised
the bar yet again." tony fucile of 'the incredibles.' (who also worked
on 'the iron giant.' give props where props are due!
Andrew Stanton
revealed in a May 2003 interview with In
Focus Magazine that animating human beings was "very, very daunting--and
man, it’s going to pay off." He specified that Pixar animators are "going
for a little bit more stylism" than they have in the Toy Story movies."
Finding
Nemo co-director Lee Unkrich also says that "we have an
Incredibles
cameo of sorts in Finding Nemo. I think that will become a little
tradition now--to catch a little glimpse of the next film in each previous
film."
Steve Jobs explained
during the First Quarter 2003 Earnings conference on May 7, 2003 that "the
current Disney agreement gives us creative control when the director of
the film has directed a previous Pixar film that has achieved box office
over a certain amount; we have directors now that have creative control
of their films. But Brad
Bird being a director directing his first Pixar film did not qualify
for that, so we had joint creative control with Disney and that has not
been a problem. There has been zero issues with Disney about it and I think
they really love the movie. We are targeted for holiday 2004 release, Disney
is fully onboard with that. You might want to check with them for the release
of Home
on the Range, but I think you will find that holiday 2004 is wide
open for The Incredibles."
Mr. Incredible
can be seen on the cover of a comic book that a young boy is holding in
the dentist's waiting room in Finding Nemo,
when Darla is breaking loose.
Finding Nemo's
co-director Lee Unkrich commented in June 2003 that "it's about a family
of superheroes who go into the witness-protection program.
'Timbone' describes
at Animation
Nation the character designs and storyboard animatics of sequences
he saw at Pixar in mid-July 2003. "I must say that Brad Bird and the lads
and ladies at Pixar really know what they're doing! A couple quick
characters that I liked and made me laugh: Violet [is] Mr. Incredible's
awkward, shy, teenage daughter. She speaks as little and as monosylabbically
as possible. She has a very slight goth teenage rebel the-world-is-too-much-and-it-hates-me
thing about her. Her superpower? Invisibility! How perfect is that? E [is]
this short fiesty lady, [she] is THE superhero costume designer! Voiced
by: Brad Bird! They couldn't find anyone who had the same attitude and
inflections to make the character work, so Mr. Bird's voice stayed. E does
a great run down of why she won't do superhero costumes with capes..."
Violet reportedly dates the son of the arch-nemesis, and Mr. Incredible
is alarmed to find that the rotten kid has X-ray vision!
Steve Jobs commented
during an earnings conference in August 2003 that The Incredibles
"is indeed turning out to be incredible. Incredibles is our studio's first
film with humans as main characters--not just one or two, but dozens of
them. Our R&D group has made some amazing break-throughs in human movement,
hair, and clothing--and we think audiences are going to be very impressed.
The story for The Incredibles is just flat out terrific. I saw the latest
version of the reel just yesterday, and I was on the edge of my seat the
entire time."
A preview of The
Incredibles aired on October 11, 2003 during "The Wonderful World of
Disney" on ABC. Early animation was presented by actor John Ratzenberger,
who explained that the Pixar film is "an hilarious action-packed computer
animated adventure about superheroes--or I should say, ex-superheroes,
like Mr. Incredibles. After a spade of unfortunate accidents and a string
of lawsuits, these superheroes were kind of forced to hang up their leotards
and take on civilian identities. Now instead of fighting evil on a daily
basis, they're fighting boredom and an ever-expanding waist line."
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