You’d think making a sequel to a popular superhero movie that won an Oscar would be the simplest thing ever. However, once you start thinking about The Incredibles 2, it becomes obvious very quickly that doing a sequel worthy of the original will be difficult.


Do you do it immediately after the ending of the first film, with the kids still young and their parents fighting bad guys? Do you make the kids older? And what about the young baby, Jack Jack? We outlined all the pitfalls in this article a while back but, the first chance we got to talk to someone who would actually know, we asked.

Earlier this year, io9 interviewed Finding Dory director Andrew Stanton. We’ll have more on that anticipated sequel soon, but Stanton is also a member of Pixar’s legendary Brain Trust, meaning he knows and helps with stories on every movie that comes through there. (Plus, Dory is similar: A highly anticipated sequel long in the making.) So we asked him and his producer Lindsey Collins what was the hook of The Incredibles 2? How is it going to work? They gave us nothing and everything.


“Well, look, it was in the movie from the first one,” Stanton said. “There was a big promise at the back end of the movie. ‘Here we go. They’re now a family of superheroes.’”

“Brad [Bird] is as good as they get,” Collins continued. “And I think he’s very aware of how excited people are for Incredibles 2 and I’m sure he feels a lot of the same pressure we felt about making sure that we’re worthy of that kind of anticipation. And I think he takes it seriously. I’m, for one, excited to get back in that world.”

As for dealing with that kind of anticipation in the movie, Collins used their experience on Dory as an example.

“I think all you want is for the first five minutes for the audience to be like, ‘We’re back with these people! We’ve missed them,’” she said. “And I think that is where you want to start from. How do I a story where in the first five minutes, you have people leaning forward and being like, “I’m so happy that I’m back in this!” And I think if you wait long enough I think you get some of that out of sheer frustration and anticipation.”


Speaking of anticipation, we’ll have to wait quite a while to see if the sequel to keeps its promise—The Incredibles 2 is currently scheduled to open in June 2019.