This might be a very mild spoiler for Incredibles 2. You have been warned!
One big challenge, when a filmmaker agrees to do a sequel, is figuring out how to bring every popular character back. It has to make sense in the context of the story, and shouldn't just pander to the fan base. Remember how much you liked "Fill-in-the-blank" character? Well, here's their glorified cameo! Brad Bird faced this issue when reviving The Incredibles after a 14 year absence, planning to set Incredibles 2 mere minutes after the original movie ended. And during a recent press day at Pixar, when Bird was asked about the characters in his sequel, he revealed that we ALMOST were going to see Frozone's wife, Honey, in person in the upcoming Incredibles 2... but for a good reason, they opted against it. Bird explained:
We wanted to show Honey in this movie. We didn't end up doing it, because it's funnier as a voice. So we actually went through all the trouble of designing the character and the design appears in the movie, but not as Frozone's wife. ... We have used her design, and she is a hero. There's not a lot of screentime, though. The problem is, we have a lot of different things that we want the movie to be about, and we're already, the two Incredibles movies are already the longest movies at Pixar, and they are never happy about that!
Honey is a voice off camera in the original movie. It has become a beloved bit, with Frozone (Samuel L. Jackson) shouting to his wife, wondering where his super suit is. Here, catch up with it again. It's still funny, nearly 15 years later. "I am the greatest good you are ever going to get!'
The scene is called back to in the most recent Incredibles 2 trailer, as well. The clip ends on a similar interaction, with Frozone rushing to get into his suit "ASAP." And we hear Honey's voice, lecturing her brow-beaten spouse that he better "be back ASAP." This is not the look of a man who is pleased to hear Honey's voice!
The question asked of Brad Bird at the Incredibles 2 press day at Pixar was about seeing more diversity and representation in the world of these super-powered beings. And so Bird wanted to make it clear that while he considered bringing Honey into the light, they ultimately decided against it, because the joke is funnier as being an off-camera voice.
However, it's encouraging to hear that they designed the look of the character, and then used her on a different hero. We reported earlier that Brad Bird and his team will use Incredibles 2 to introduce all new heroes, some of them going by the name of the Wannabes. I wonder if the Honey design made its way onto one of those character
Incredibles 2 will be in theaters on June 15. For more from our visit to Pixar, visit this page. And for all of the movies coming to theaters this year, bookmark our 2018 Movie Release Calendar.
