The Incredibles 2 made $1.2 billion, and Pixar still let a decade go by before putting a third one on the calendar.
When the studio announced the sequel at D23 in 2024, it confirmed that one of its most beloved franchises was finally coming back. That would have been enough on its own. But the more interesting thing is the timing, because the third film lands at the exact point where this series can finally move past the story Pixar started telling in 2004.
Brad Bird is still writing the screenplay, which keeps a real connection to the first two movies. Elemental (official site) director Peter Sohn is coming at the material from somewhere else entirely. The release date is June 16, 2028, and the Parrs aren’t just being dusted off for a victory lap.
The kids can carry this one
The biggest challenge in front of Incredibles 3 is also the most obvious one. Violet, Dash and Jack-Jack are finally capable of holding up a movie by themselves.
Look at where they started. In The Incredibles, Violet is painfully shy, Dash is desperate to prove himself and Jack-Jack is a baby whose powers haven’t shown up yet. By Incredibles 2, Violet is pushing back against her parents out loud, Dash wants to use what he can do and Jack-Jack has turned into the most unpredictable Super in the house.
Violet has been ready for this longer than anybody. Her forcefield and invisibility mattered in the first film’s final fight, but her actual arc was about working up the nerve to stop hiding. The sequel put her teenage life at the center, right down to her frustration over losing a shot at a date with Tony Rydinger once Helen’s secret identity got out.
Now she and Dash are sneaking out to fight crime because they want to prove they can handle it. The third movie can let those personalities steer instead of parking them on the sidelines.
Jack-Jack is the variable nobody controls
The raccoon fight in Incredibles 2 is one of the funniest scenes the franchise has produced, and it doubled as a warning about how powerful this kid is.
He can teleport, shoot lasers from his eyes, walk through walls, multiply, change shape and turn into a small demon-like monster when his temper gets away from him. If that collection is now spiraling past what the family can manage, he stops being comic relief. He becomes the reason Violet and Dash have to grow into the heroes they keep insisting they already are.
Ten years pass for us, a few weeks for them
The gap between movies is 10 years. The gap inside the story is a few weeks. Violet is still a teenager, Dash is still 10 and Jack-Jack is still a baby.
Bird has said aging them up would damage the franchise, because the Parr children were built around a specific stretch of childhood. Their ages aren’t trivia attached to the characters. They’re the reason the personalities and the powers lock together.
Jack-Jack is an infant, carrying all the uncertainty that comes with that, and his expanding set of abilities is a joke about how nobody knows what a baby turns into. Dash’s speed is what being 10 feels like: restless, impatient, hunting for anywhere to put the energy. Violet is a teenager, and invisibility and force fields make her insecurity and her urge to shut people out into literal powers.
Being a Super is legal now, which kills the old formula
Two movies of hiding ended aboard the Everjust, when the family’s actions helped get the Super Relocation Act repealed. Bob, Helen, Violet, Dash and everyone else can work in the open without getting arrested.
That guts both of the conflicts this series has run on. The first film was Bob sneaking back into hero work. The second was Helen fronting a campaign to make Supers legal again. Neither one applies anymore.
At D23, Pixar teased a Superhero League and showed concept art of Mr. Incredible pulling civilians to safety while a crowd gathered to photograph him. Superheroism is turning back into a normal part of public life.
Legalization is good news for the Parrs. It also hands them a brand new problem, because after years of fighting to be tolerated, the Supers have to work out what happens when everyone wants them to be heroes.
Bob may be the one getting left behind
Bob’s whole issue in The Incredibles was feeling shoved out of the life he loved. He hated the insurance job because he knew he was supposed to be Mr. Incredible.
Pete Docter said Bob is facing that same question again for a completely different reason. Supers are legal, Violet and Dash are out proving they can handle themselves and Winston Deavor is building a heavily sponsored Superhero League.
There may not be an obvious spot for him in any of it. After a first movie spent clawing his old life back, it would land if the third one asked whether he knows when to hand it over.
The villain outguns the entire family
The first two antagonists were dangerous because they were clever. Syndrome built an arsenal without having a single power of his own, and Screenslaver nearly turned the public against Supers without throwing a punch. The third film is going a blunter route.
At D23, Docter teased a villain with more power than the whole Parr family and the rest of the Supers combined. Pixar hasn’t explained what that means yet, but the setup is hard to shrug off. Bob is strong, Helen can stretch into nearly anything, Violet has her force fields, Dash has his speed and Jack-Jack has already flashed a ridiculous number of abilities. Frozone is still around too.
Making all of that read as insufficient is the tallest order this series has attempted. The Parrs can’t simply out-muscle the thing. They’ll have to work together in a way they never have.
Bird is out of the chair for the first time
Incredibles 3 will be the first film in the franchise Bird hasn’t directed. He wrote and directed both previous entries and is stepping aside for Sohn because of his work on Ray Gunn.
Sohn knows the building, having directed The Good Dinosaur and Elemental, though this is a different kind of job. And for anyone nervous about the handoff, Bird is still writing the script and serving as an executive producer, so Sohn isn’t rebuilding the Parrs from scratch. Bird shapes the story, Sohn decides how it looks and moves.
There were 14 years between the first two movies. The franchise has already survived one creative transition. This time, the person who invented these people never left the room.
