Pixar has released some truly wonderful films, and one of my absolute favourites is Ratatouille. The film is a love letter to cooking that follows a young rat (Patton Oswalt) who dreams of becoming a chef at Auguste Gusteau’s restaurant and forms an unlikely alliance with the restaurant’s garbage boy Alfredo Linguini (Lou Romano). It’s been nearly 20 years since the film’s release, but despite Pixar’s insistence, writer-director Brad Bird has no interest in making Ratatouille 2.
Brad Bird on Ratatouille 2
“No. I don’t,” Bird said when asked by Collider if he would make a sequel. “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.’ Any time you do something that ends up connecting with people, they automatically think, ‘How about another?’ 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.“
I’m definitely siding with Bird on this one. Although I’m sure Ratatouille 2 would be a success if it were made, not every film needs a sequel.
Ray Gunn
Next up for Bird is Ray Gunn, a passion project that he’s been trying to get off the ground for decades.
The logline reads: “In Metropia, a gigantic city in an alternate future as seen from 1939, private eye Raymond Gunn is drawn into a case involving aliens, murder and a multimedia star named Venus Nova.” The film features the voices of Sam Rockwell as Ray Gunn, Scarlett Johansson as Venus Nova and Tom Waits as Eyera, Ray’s most trusted compatriot, who is also a one-eyed alien.
Bird first came up with the idea in the ’90s, but it was shelved when he directed The Iron Giant.
“RAY GUNN has been in my mind for over 30 years. The film is a blend of sci-fi and classic detective movies from the ’40s…it’s Maltese Falcon meets Buck Rogers. I’ve been a fan of both of those sort of genres, and blending them together seemed fun, and a chance to play with a lot of very cinematic elements, and extreme characters,” he said. “There’s a big chunk of people who don’t watch animation. That’s a group I’m anxious to persuade because it’s an amazing art form that is way too limited in people’s minds. Animation as a medium is too interesting to limit what kind of stories can be told.“
The film is set to be released on Netflix on December 18.
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