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"The Incredibles" (2004).

"The Incredibles" was released in 2004 to wild acclaim. It won the the 2004 Annie Award for Best Animated Feature. It won Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature and Sound Editing. It became the first entirely animated film to win the prestigious Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. It took in $630 million at the box office. So, people liked "The Incredibles."

Well, it's coming back.

Josh Hollander of Pixar.

Pixar’s director of 3D production Josh Hollander spilled the beans at the recent 3D Creative Summit in London, where he was interviewed on stage at London’s BFI Southbank by Screen International.:

“Right now we’re working on The Incredibles, which is a lot of fun in 3D. I’m not sure what the release strategy for it will be. It’s been an interesting challenge to work on technology because - while the film was released 10 years ago - the technology is even older as it took four years to make.”

"The Incredibles" was directed and written by Brad Bird. As for the long-awaited "The Incredibles" sequel, Bird has had this to say:

"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 am stroking my chin and scratching my head. 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."

So, we should see that at some point, too.

Brad Bird.

Another of Bird's smash hits, "Ratatouille," also appears ready to undergo the same process.

"Ratatouille."

Hollander said about "Ratatouille":

“We have a version of Ratatouille, which works really well in 3D and we’re trying to figure out exactly what the release strategy for that will be.”

Hollander had some interesting things to say about 3D which sound pretty realistic:

“I think that we as an industry may have lost some of our audience for 3D with releases that didn’t beg for the medium or didn’t warrant the medium or didn’t use the median in a nuanced and sophisticated and comfortable way..I think it’s possible that we drove some folks away from 3D with the higher ticket price or whatever else. But I also think that as the industry settles on a more nuanced approach, I really hope and believe that the audiences will return.”

He also said that there were new technologies on the horizon, such as High Frame Rate, Ultra High Definition 4K, and High Dynamic Range:

“Of those, the High Dynamic Range seems most interesting to us because there are entire worlds of colour that we’ve not been able to show you and not be able to represent in our films because of the limited colour space of the display technologies. 4K is also interesting to us - that added clarity. High Frame Rate isn’t something we’ve been digging into yet, we doing some testing but it’s not banging down our door and begging for us to use it right now.”

So, there are big changes coming in animation:

“[3D] is still a young tool and just as with colour or sound or any other thing we as a community have been learning how to apply it in the most effective way and we’re getting more sophisticated. Our usage of it is getting more nuanced and more delicate which doesn’t necessarily mean more conservative. I think we are as a studio are expanding our usage of it and we in an industry are kind of meeting it at a nice middle place which is working really well.”

You may not have heard of Hollander, but this is the type of guy who knows what he is talking about when it comes to the technical aspects of animated feature films. As for all of these animation advances, we can't wait!

2020