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Brad Bird's Next Project Is An Original Live-Action/Animated Hybrid Musical With Michael Giacchino

brad bird next project
By Hoai-Tran Bui/

Brad Bird has successfully made the leap from animated movies to live-action blockbusters and back to animated movies. But there's one genre, despite often working under the umbrella of Disney, that he hasn't yet tackled: musicals.

The Incredibles 2 director confirmed that his next project will be something that he's "deathly afraid of" but that he's been wanting to make for a long time. The next Brad Bird project is a live-action and animated hybrid musical that will be composed by Michael Giacchino. And before you say Mary Poppins 3, it's a completely original project.

During an interview with Variety at the BAFTA Tea Party, Bird confirmed that his next project will be an original musical with roughly "20 minutes of animation":

"Well it's a musical, actually. I don't know anything about musicals so I figured I should do this, because I'm deathly afraid of it and it seems like a cool thing. It's a project I've been wanting to make for a long time, it's got about 20 minutes of animation in it. It's an original project, I assure you you don't know."

After some prying from the interview, Bird confirmed that Michael Giacchino, a frequent collaborator who recently worked with Bird on Incredibles 2, will be "doing the music" — though whether that means he will simply be composing the score or working on the musical numbers is unclear. It's also unclear whether this film will be a Disney film, though that seems likely considering both Bird and Giacchino's great relationship with the House of Mouse, and the $1.2 billion that Incredibles 2 raked in worldwide.

Bird's vibrant, kinetic directing style may actually be perfectly suited for a musical. Ratatouille's food sequences were as close to a musical as a Pixar film has gotten — apart from WALL-E — and Bird has proved that he has a deft hand with both action and character in films like Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. And the pairing of Bird and Giacchino has proven to be  a match made in heaven, with the duo teaming up for The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Ghost Protocol, and Incredibles 2 to soaring success. Bird has only had one real stumble with Tomorrowland so I look forward to whatever he has in store for us next.

See the full interview clip below.

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