The Incredibles are coming back for a third big-screen adventure, but unlike their first two outings, Brad Bird will not be in the director’s chair. Instead, that honor will go to Peter Sohn, a Pixar veteran who helmed the 2023 sleeper hit Elemental. The Hollywood Reporter confirms that, while he won’t be at the wheel of The Incredibles 3, Bird will still write the film’s script, as he did for The Incredibles and The Incredibles 2. Bird and Sohn are frequent collaborators, and he was hand-picked to direct the film by Bird and Pixar chief Pete Docter.

No reason was given for Bird bowing out of director’s duties for the animated threequel, but the veteran animator and director has several projects on his plate at the moment. He’s currently in pre-production for Ray Gunn, a passion project Bird has been working on for decades; it’s the story of the last human private eye in a futuristic world of aliens. He’s also working on an adaptation of the historical novel 1906, set during the great San Francisco earthquake of that year. He is currently in the process of writing the Incredibles 3 script; so far, the film does not yet have a release date, having only been teased at last year’s D23 Expo.

What Is ‘The Incredibles’ About?

2004’s The Incredibles follows two married superheroes, Mr. Incredible/Bob Parr (Craig T. Nelson) and Elasti-Girl/Helen Parr (Holly Hunter); with superheroes outlawed by the government, the two abandoned their secret identities and retired to the suburbs, where they raised their children Violet (Sarah Vowell), Dash, and Jack-Jack, all of whom developed superpowers of their own. They were brought out of retirement, alongside their children, by the deadly Syndrome (Jason Lee), who intended to establish himself as the world’s greatest (and only) superhero after killing several of Bob and Helen’s fellow ex-vigilantes. The sequel, 2018’s Incredibles 2, sees the family take on the Screenslaver, a mind-controlling menace; after defeating her, the grateful government legalizes superheroics once more.

Sequels have been big business for Pixar lately: last year’s Inside Out 2 dominated the global box office with a take of $1.7 billion USD. With Incredibles 2 netting $1.2 billion, the computer animation pioneers are hoping that so-called “superhero fatigue” doesn’t extend to animation, as well.

The Incredibles 3 is in development; no release date has yet been announced.

via Collider