Incredibles 2
Incredibles 2 is a 2018 American animated superhero film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Written and directed by Brad Bird, it is the sequel to The Incredibles (2004) and the second full-length installment of the franchise. The story follows the Incredibles as they try to restore the public's trust in superheroes while balancing their family life, only to combat a new opponent who seeks to turn the populace against all supers. Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell and Samuel L. Jackson reprise their roles from the first film; newcomers to the cast include Huckleberry Milner, Bob Odenkirk, Catherine Keener and Jonathan Banks. Michael Giacchino returned to compose the score.
This article is about the film. For the video game, see The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer. For the smartphone, see Incredible 2.Incredibles 2
Brad Bird
- Craig T. Nelson
- Holly Hunter
- Sarah Vowell
- Huckleberry Milner
- Samuel L. Jackson
- Bob Odenkirk
- Catherine Keener
- Jonathan Banks
- Mahyar Abousaeedi (camera)
- Erik Smitt (lighting)
- June 5, 2018 (Los Angeles)
- June 15, 2018 (United States)
118 minutes[1]
United States
English
$1.243 billion[4]
Following the success of The Incredibles, Bird postponed development on a sequel to work on other films. He attempted to distinguish the script from superhero films and superhero television series released since the first film, focusing on the family dynamic rather than the superhero genre.
Incredibles 2 premiered in Los Angeles on June 5, 2018, and was theatrically released in the United States on June 15, 2018. The film received positive reviews from critics, with praise for its animation, humor, voice acting, action sequences, writing, and musical score. The film made $182.7 million in its opening weekend, setting the record for best debut for an animated film, and grossed over $1.2 billion worldwide, making it the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2018, the second-highest-grossing animated film, and the 15th-highest-grossing film of all time during its theatrical run, along with being Pixar’s highest-grossing film and the third to gross $1 billion after Finding Dory and Toy Story 3 and the highest-grossing animated film in the United States and Canada. Incredibles 2 was named by the National Board of Review as the Best Animated Film of 2018. The film was nominated for Best Animated Feature Film at the 76th Golden Globe Awards and 91st Academy Awards, but lost both awards to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The film was also the winner of the 2019 Kids Choice Award for Favorite Animated Movie.
Plot[edit]
Three months after defeating Buddy Pine (alias Syndrome),[a] the Parr family (alias the Incredibles) and Lucius Best (alias Frozone) battle the Underminer. The superheroes prevent the supervillain from destroying the city hall, but are unable to stop him from robbing a bank and making his escape. The lukewarm success and wide collateral damage prompt the government to shut down the Superhero Relocation Program, ending financial assistance for "supers". Violet's classmate and love interest, Tony Rydinger, discovers her superhero identity; Agent Rick Dicker accidentally erases Tony's entire knowledge of Violet instead of just this incident.
A wealthy businessman, Winston Deavor, and his sister Evelyn, who run the telecommunications company DevTech, propose secret missions to Helen (alias Elastigirl), Bob (alias Mr. Incredible), and Lucius. These are to be recorded and broadcast in a movement to regain public trust in superheroes. Winston chooses Helen for their initial missions as she has caused the least collateral damage; reluctant about being away from her family in a hard time and getting in problems with the law, she accepts after a talk with Bob. Winston rehouses the Parrs in a luxury mansion.
Bob struggles in his new role as a stay-at-home parent, left to deal with Violet's dejection over Tony forgetting their first date, Dash's math homework, and the chaos of baby Jack-Jack's burgeoning superpowers. He suppresses envy for Helen and, at Lucius's advice, calls on Edna Mode to babysit Jack-Jack. Meanwhile, in the city of New Urbem, Helen encounters the supervillain Screenslaver, a hacker who can perform hypnosis through any screen. After preventing him from destroying a crowded commuter train and thwarting his assassination attempt on an ambassador, she tracks his signals and infiltrates his base. Defeating him, she unmasks him only to discover a disoriented man who is bewildered at his detainment. At a party celebrating Helen's success, Winston announces a summit of world leaders to legalize supers on live television, hosted aboard his luxury hydrofoil yacht, the Everjust, and attended by supers coming out of hiding.
Helen realizes Screenslaver lured her to a decoy double, an innocent pizza delivery driver under the control of hypnotic goggles. Evelyn reveals herself to be the true Screenslaver and captures Helen, restraining Helen using her goggles and a freezing cell that negates Helen's self-stretching superpower. Evelyn blames society's overdependence on supers for the deaths of her and Winston's parents, as their father was only shot by burglars after the newly-outlawed supers Fironic and Gazerbeam did not answer his calls for aid; their mother died of grief. Evelyn plans to sabotage her brother's summit to ruin the reputation of all supers once more, and keep them outlawed in the hopes that the public will be safer with self-sufficient crimefighting.
Evelyn lures Bob into a trap on the Everjust, goggling him, and sends a squadron of hypnotized supers to subdue Violet and Dash. Lucius arrives to protect them, but is overwhelmed and also goggled. They escape along with Jack-Jack in a refurbished Incredibile, the supercar once owned by Bob, and, deducing their parents' peril, stow away on the Everjust. Onboard, Helen, Bob, and Lucius are forced to broadcast themselves giving villainous speeches, subduing the ship’s crew, and locking its course in reverse. They close in on New Urbem at a disastrous pace. The children arrive; Jack-Jack removes the goggles on Helen, who in turn frees Bob and Lucius. They work together to release the other mind-controlled supers and maneuver the Everjust more safely into port. Evelyn makes an escape in the yacht's parasite jet, but is caught by Helen and arrested.
With another disaster averted and the positive publicity surrounding this, supers around the world regain their legal, respected status just as Winston hoped. Sometime later, Tony is picked up by Violet and her family in the Incredibile for their reinstated movie date. They spot a police chase; Violet leaves Tony at the cinema, promising a quick return, before the Parrs enthusiastically don their old superhero masks and join the pursuit.
Bret Parker reprises her role as babysitter Kari McKeen in a deleted scene.
Production[edit]
Development[edit]
Following The Incredibles, Brad Bird directed his next film for Pixar, Ratatouille, which was released in June 2007. Near its premiere, Bird said he was open to an idea of a sequel to The Incredibles, but only if it could be better than the original. He stated, "I have pieces that I think are good, but I don't have them all together."[17] In a May 2013 interview, Bird reiterated his interest in a sequel: "I have been thinking about it. People think that I have not been, but I have—because I love those characters, and love that world ... I have many, many elements that I think would work really well in another Incredibles film, and if I can get 'em to click all together, I would probably wanna do that."[18] While publicizing the first film, Bird had already conceptualized the eventual approach where Bob and Helen would switch roles, and Jack-Jack would develop multiple powers unknown to the family.[19]
At the Disney shareholder meeting in March 2014, Disney CEO and chairman Bob Iger confirmed that Pixar was working on an Incredibles sequel, and that Bird would return as both director and screenwriter.[20] Bird started the script around April 2015,[21] and said that the Incredibles sequel would be his next film after Tomorrowland.[22]
Writing[edit]
One challenge in writing Incredibles 2 was how to deal with the large number of superhero films and television series that had been released since the first film, such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe.[23] To try to differentiate the sequel, Bird wanted to avoid tropes related to the superhero genre: "I don't think that kind of idea stays interesting for very long. For me, the interesting thing was never the superhero part of it. It was more the family dynamic, and how do superhero things play into that."[24] He said he wanted to include some unused ideas from the first film,[25][26] and that the new story would focus on Helen Parr / Elastigirl.[27]
Though the sequel was released fourteen years after the first, Bird did not want to use a narrative element like an ellipsis or to come up with new characters, and instead continued from where the first film left off. This allowed him to keep characters with the same superpowers and not have to develop new ones, nor did he need to figure out how to deal with Violet and Dash being adults. This also allowed him to keep Jack-Jack as an infant with an array of powers, which Bird likened to how infants are able to understand numerous languages.[28] While the plot of the 2005 follow-up video game to The Incredibles, The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer, begins at that same point of time,[29] the film discards the game's continuity. The film was produced with a production budget of $200 million.[2][3]
Casting[edit]
In November 2016, Pixar announced that Holly Hunter and Samuel L. Jackson would reprise their roles.[6][7] During the 2017 D23 Expo, it was confirmed that Craig T. Nelson and Sarah Vowell would also reprise their roles,[5] and that Spencer Fox, the original voice of Dashiell "Dash" Parr, would be replaced by younger newcomer Huckleberry Milner.[5] Later that month, Bird and John Ratzenberger were, also, confirmed as reprising their characters from the first film.[8][27]
In November 2017, Pixar announced that Bob Odenkirk and Catherine Keener had joined the cast.[8] In January 2018, it was announced that Sophia Bush and Isabella Rossellini would voice new characters Voyd and The Ambassador, while Jonathan Banks would voice Rick Dicker after the character's original voice actor Bud Luckey retired in 2014;[9][10] after his death in 2018, the film was dedicated to Luckey's memory.[30]
Animation[edit]
One advantage that Pixar had with Incredibles 2 was the advancement of technology the company had seen since the original film and a team of much more experienced animators. Producer John Walker said, "I think that one of the things that excited Brad and Ralph Eggleston, the production designer, was that the technology existed now to finally realize the designs in the way that they had hoped to realize them in 2004. There were no notions of, 'Well, we don't know how to do long hair, we don't know how to do humans, we don't know how to do muscles.' Everybody knows how to do it. It's just now about doing it quickly."[31] Because Pixar no longer used the same systems from the first film, all the characters had to be created from scratch on the computer again. The studio also used physically based human eye models for the characters for the first time, which possibly made the eyes larger and more stylized than that of real humans.[32]
Marketing[edit]
Promotion[edit]
A 53-second teaser trailer premiered on November 18, 2017 during ESPN's broadcast of College GameDay. It received 113.0 million views in its first 24 hours, becoming the most-viewed trailer for an animated film up until the release of the teaser trailer for Frozen II in February 2019, which surpassed it with 116.4 million views in its first 24 hours. It is also the 14th-most-viewed trailer overall.[36] The studio spent a total of $150 million promoting the film.[37] In the month of the release of the film, Elastigirl's new costume in Incredibles 2 was added in the video game Disney Magic Kingdoms, along with a limited time Event to unlock Jack-Jack.[38]
Merchandise[edit]
An Incredibles 2 graphic novel and comic miniseries was published by Dark Horse Comics in 2018. The graphic novel, titled Incredibles 2: Heroes at Home, was written by Liz Marsham and illustrated by Nicoletta Baldari. A comic miniseries, titled Incredibles 2: Crisis in Mid-Life! & Other Stories, was written by Christos Gage and Landry Walker, and illustrated by Gurihiru, J. Bone, Andrea Greppi and Roberta Zanotta. Christos Gage also wrote (with Jean Claudio-Vinci as illustrator) another series titled Incredibles 2: Secret Identities. The series, like his Crisis in Mid-Life! & Other Stories, focuses on what happens after the film. This particular series is about Violet, published in a single graphic novel by Dark Horse Comics on October 1, 2019.[39][40][41]
In May 2018, a prose novel was released entitled Incredibles 2: A Real Stretch: An Elastigirl Prequel Story, which focuses on the life of the character Elastigirl before the events of the first film.
A Lego video game adaptation of both films was released on the same day as Incredibles 2.[42]
Funko released several Pop! figures including a chase (1/6) variant of Violet in her invisible form, and several retail exclusives to Target and Hot Topic.[43] There was a Jack-Jack as Edna Mode Pop! figure that released exclusively at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2018.[44] In addition, Funko released several blind box mystery minis of characters from the film.
Figpin released a boxed set of 5 characters (Edna "E" Mode, Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl, Dash, and Violet) limited to 1000 pieces, which was released exclusively at the D23 Expo in August 2019.[45] Numerous attendees camped out overnight to purchase the box set at the Figpin booth, which sold out quickly.
Release[edit]
Theatrical[edit]
The official premiere of Incredibles 2 took place in Los Angeles on June 5, 2018.[46][47] It was theatrically released in the United States on June 15, 2018.[48][49][50] It was accompanied by Pixar's short film Bao.[51] The film's release was originally scheduled for June 21, 2019, but the date was moved forward to 2018 as it was ahead of schedule, and Pixar handed the 2019 release date over to Toy Story 4.[48]
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
Incredibles 2 grossed $608.6 million in the United States and Canada, and $634.2 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $1.242 billion.[4]
On July 1, 2018, the film passed $648 million at the worldwide box office, surpassing the $633 million the original film made in its entire theatrical run.[54] It ended its run as the ninth-highest-grossing film of all time domestically and the highest-grossing animated film domestically.[55][56] The film crossed the $1 billion mark on July 30, 2018, becoming the seventh animated film and the 36th film of all time to reach the milestone. It was also the fifth animated Disney film, the third Pixar film, and Disney's 18th film overall to gross $1 billion worldwide, as well as the fastest animated film to gross $1 billion, doing so in 46 days, surpassing Minions (49 days), but later being surpassed by The Lion King in 2019 (21 days), also made by Disney, and The Super Mario Bros. Movie (25 days) in 2023.[57] On August 12, the film surpassed Toy Story 3 ($1.067 billion) to become the highest-grossing Pixar film worldwide.[58] Deadline Hollywood calculated the net profit of the film to be $447.4 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues, making it the third-most-profitable release of 2018.[37]
Possible sequel[edit]
Following the release of Incredibles 2, director Brad Bird acknowledged that the film's truncated production schedule resulted in many plotlines and ideas he had for the film being cut from the final version. He cited Pixar's decision in October 2016 to swap the release dates of Toy Story 4 and Incredibles 2, which meant that Bird's film lost a full year of production. Bird stated that the lingering plotlines could lead to a third installment, just as they did with the second. "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." Cast members including Samuel L. Jackson and Sophia Bush have expressed interest in reprising their roles. Producer John Walker would not "rule [a third film] out".[125]
