A decade will have passed by the time Incredibles 3 is released in theaters, but according to the executive producer, there will not be a time jump in the story—and there’s a specific reason why.
Incredibles 3 was officially announced in 2024, with Pixar’s Pete Docter announcing that Brad Bird, who wrote and directed the first two films, would be back as screenwriter and EP. The Good Dinosaur and Elemental‘s Peter Sohn is directing the movie.
Even though there was a 14-year gap between The Incredibles and Incredibles 2, the sequel picks up immediately after the first film with no time jump. The same will happen when Incredibles 3 comes out in 2028, according to Bird, who told The Direct the family will stay the same age, and Violet, Dash and Jack-Jack will remain kids.
The reason for this is that the Incredibles franchise would “lose the archetypical aspect” of the story if the characters aged up, which is an aspect of that world Bird wants to keep intact.
“If you lose that, you lose the archetypical aspect of it, and that’s something that is important to me. In other words…They were meant to represent parts of life that you go through.”
“They were meant to represent parts of life that you go through,” the executive producer explained, adding that Jack-Jack represents the most “unknown” stage of life because no one knows how babies are going to turn out when they get older, and his multiple powers embody that.
“They might have all the powers. They might have none of the powers. You don’t know,” he said.
Dash represents the pre-teen era of life, someone who’s “energetic, anxious, all over the place, short attention span,” which is represented by his speed powers in the movies.
Violet, meanwhile, is the teenager in the family. As Bird explained, teens are insecure and defensive, and want to be invisible, which is why Violet has the power of invisibility and can generate force fields.
“So, everyone has been a baby, and they know what babies are. Babies are…who knows what they are, right? They might be amazing. They might be the next bum on the corner. You don’t know. Babies are an unknown. They might have all the powers. They might have none of the powers. You don’t know.
“Then you get to 10. People are energetic, anxious, all over the place, short attention span…Sugar[y] breakfast cereal. Go, go! That’s 10-year-olds. Teenagers are insecure. They want to be invisible. ‘Don’t look at me. Don’t look at me. I’m not feeling comfortable. I’m defensive. I’ve got force fields…’ Moms are pulled 10 different directions at once, like taffy, so it makes her elastic. Dads are expected to be strong, you know.”
Since each of their powers fits their respective ages, having a time jump would break everything that’s been built up over the past 22 years. “People just keep thinking that aging them up is going to make them somehow hipper or cooler, or more like them, and it’s like no, it won’t,” Bird said defiantly.
“And so, those are family archetypes, and aging them up doesn’t help that at all…People just keep thinking that aging them up is going to make them somehow hipper or cooler, or more like them, and it’s like no, it won’t.”
Incredibles 2 ends with Violet ditching her date with Tony Rydinger to help her family with a police chase. Similar to how the first film’s tease of the Underminer continues at the start of the sequel, Incredibles 3 might do the same with the police chase now that Bird has confirmed the timeline.
When The Incredibles debuted in 2004, it went on to gross $631.6 million at the box office, earned rave reviews from critics (with a 97% Rotten Tomatoes score), and won Best Animated Feature and Best Sound Editing at the Oscars.
After directing and writing The Incredibles, Bird returned in the same roles for 2018’s Incredibles 2, which surpassed its predecessor at the box office by earning $1.24 billion, becoming the highest-grossing Pixar film at the time (which has since been toppled by Inside Out 2).
Critics once again gave positive reviews and a 93% RT score, and the sequel landed an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature.
Since then, Pixar has released movies like Toy Story 4, Luca, Turning Red, Inside Out 2, Hoppers and Toy Story 5, with the latter closing in on $1 billion. Up next on the animation company’s theatrical calendar are Gatto and Incredibles 3, with Coco 2 also in development.
Incredibles 3 will be released in theaters on Friday, June 16, 2028.
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