Entertainment

An Incredibles/Star Wars/Marvel Crossover? No, You Don't Want This

by James Grebey
Disney

After 14 years, the Incredibles are back, with Pixar’s new movie Incredibles 2 hitting theaters on Friday. But, a lot has changed in the nearly decade and a half that the Parr family has been gone. Disney now owns Marvel and Lucasfilm, so the Avengers and Star Wars are cleaning up at the box office. Could Pixar’s team of superheroes ever have an Infinity War-like crossover with some of Disney’s other super properties?

Probably not, according to Incredibles 2 director Brad Bird in a May interview with Fandango. That’s good, because as Bird explains, it would be a very bad idea.

“I’ve heard it discussed, not with me in particular, but I’ve heard it sort of thrown around a little bit,” Bird responded when Fandango brought up a crossover. He continued:

But at Pixar we’ve always felt like Marvel is Marvel, and Pixar is Pixar, and Lucasfilm is Lucasfilm. And they serve everyone better, including Disney, if they’re separate. If you start crossing them too much it’s like when you blend too many colors together, it starts turning into mud. So, that may make a marketing guy’s mouth water but I don’t think it makes artists excited.

If the Avengers, the Incredibles, and the Jedi want to team up in Kingdom Hearts 4 (due out in, like, 2032, probably), that’s fine. But smashing these distinct universes together would result in bland artistic sludge, as Bird notes. The reason why the MCU has worked so well for so long is that, while the core aesthetics and vibe remain the same, different movies about different heroes feel, well, different. A Star Wars movie feels different from an Avengers movie, and a Pixar movie feels especially different. To put all those things together does everyone — creators and viewers alike — a disservice.

Incredibles 2 opens on June 15.

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