Pixar struck gold last month with the release of Lee Unkrich’s pleasantly surprising and joyous Coco, and next year the studio will (hopefully) release yet another terrific film in Incredibles 2. While sequels at Pixar can be received with groans when first announced, this is one follow-up that the fans were actually asking for, and director Brad Bird has had an idea for the sequel for years. After the release of Tomorrowland, he opted to put that idea into motion, and thus Incredibles 2 came together incredibly quickly and is now on track for release next summer.
In anticipation, a new image has been unveiled that showcases just how closely tied to the original movie this sequel is. Indeed, it picks up literally minutes after the first film left off, and thus we’re not going to be seeing some crazy time jump that picks up with the characters now 14 years older. Instead, the story finds Holly Hunter’s Elastigirl front and center in the action while Craig T. Nelson’s Mr. Incredible takes on family duties back home.
Speaking with EW, Hunter says the recording experience was far more joyous this time around, teasing what will hopefully a full-on feminist superhero movie:
“It’s always interesting when you have a storyteller who can take off the way that Brad can, and in a way, I feel that his storytelling abilities acquired a different kind of lift-off with this movie. This time was so much fun because I know Brad so much better, and the way the story unfolded for me in the recording sessions has been kind of stratospheric. Brad’s imagination veers off into intensely funny stuff, and I find that so fresh. And of course, that also includes the character development of Helen throughout this second movie. It just feels really rich, and like… this guy is a true feminist.”
The Oscar-winning Big Sick actress continued, saying the film explores Helen straddling a work-life balance that is sometimes (nay, oftentimes) only "acceptable" for men:
Helen/Elastigirl’s journey is, as Hunter puts it, “full-fledged,” filling in certain blanks about the super-mom’s life that Hunter relished uncovering, including “a real incredible sense of competitiveness and ambition. She throws down the gauntlet in this one. It’s so much fun to see a woman luxuriating in those two arenas, because women have for so many generations been brought up to not be ambitious or to not be competitive, and it’s fun to see Helen basking in those two arenas in much the same way that we give men license to do.”
As if we weren’t already excited for this movie, Holly Hunter leading a feminist superhero pic packed with color, humor, and a Michael Giacchino score is what we call “the real deal.” June 15, 2018 cannot get here soon enough.
