Brad Bird is pouring cold water on sequel speculation surrounding his Oscar-winning Pixar movie Ratatouille.
Bird, who wrote and directed the 2007 feature about a rat with unlikely culinary talent, told Collider in an interview published Thursday that he has no plans to work on a potential Ratatouille 2, despite apparent interest from Pixar brass in a sequel. This follows Ratatouille voice star Patton Oswalt recently expressing interest in reprising the character.
“No, I don’t,” Bird told the publication when asked if he has interest in Ratatouille 2. In referring to Pixar executives, the filmmaker continued, “They’ve made little feints towards that to see how I would react. They’ll, like, crack a joke, but the joke will be a little bit serious, like, ‘Would you?’ And I’m like, ‘No, we told that story.’”
Bird, who also helmed Pixar’s 2004 hit The Incredibles and its 2018 sequel, said it does not surprise him when Hollywood eyes a possible sequel. He said he has also fielded questions about a potential follow-up to his animated film The Iron Giant that Warner Bros. released in 1999.
“Any time you do something that ends up connecting with people, they automatically think, ‘How about another?’” the filmmaker said. “People have mentioned it about The Iron Giant, which is hilarious to me because the film didn’t succeed at all in its initial release. It’s caught up in time, but what would you do to follow that up? He’s lumbering around, still undiscovered? In other words, to me, that story is told.”
Ratatouille centers on a Paris-based rat with a proclivity for cooking who teams up with a young restaurant employee. Lou Romano, Ian Holm, Janeane Garofalo, Peter O’Toole and Brad Garrett also provided voices for the Disney film that surpassed $620 million ($1 billion today) at the global box office and was nominated for five Oscars, including a win for best animated feature.
Pixar has had major success with sequels to its popular properties. Toy Story 5 scored the year’s biggest debut frame when it opened Friday, while Inside Out 2 became the highest-grossing title of 2024.
Oswalt told the Obsessed podcast in an episode released last week that he would be game to return to the world of Ratatouille. “Obviously, I’d love if there was a Ratatouille sequel,” he said. But Oswalt made it clear that he would want to be sure that Bird was involved: “So if he gets an idea, that’s the one I wanna do.”
Original Article on Hollywood Reporter