am2xAnimated Movies was launched by Olivier Mouroux in 1999. In addition to a daily news report, he also created a database of information about past, current, and upcoming films. In 2003, he took a job in the industry and had to give up his work on the site. Several fans of Animated Movies decided to take on the task of keeping the news portion of his site going, and founded what is now Animated Views.

As AV turns 15, let's take a look back at the site we descended from. Below you can explore the database Olivier compiled at Animated Movies during its existence, as it last appeared online in October 2003.

Cast * Story * Interesting Facts


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
 
 

CAST
 
 
Craig T. Nelson (April 4, 1946)
Holly Hunter (March 20, 1958)
Samuel L. Jackson (December 21, 1948)
Jason Lee (April 25, 1970)

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
 
 
Mr. Incredibel
Ms. Incredible
Violet Incredible
The Incredibles' son?
The Incredibles' youngest kid?
The Incredibles' main arch-nemesis

STORY

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.
 
 

INTERESTING FACTS

  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.
Mister Invincible!
  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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