Brad Bird

Lore & Background

Bird's involvement with Mission: Impossible came after he had already established himself as a master of animated storytelling. He wrote and directed The Incredibles (2004) and Ratatouille (2007), both of which earned him Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature and nominations for Best Original Screenplay. Before that, he directed the acclaimed but box-office bomb The Iron Giant (1999). Bird has a reputation for supervising his projects to a high degree of detail, a trait he brought to Ghost Protocol. The film was his first live-action feature, and it was similarly successful, proving his ability to handle large-scale action sequences while maintaining character focus. Bird advocates for creative freedom and the possibilities of animation, and has criticized its stereotype as children's entertainment or classification as a genre rather than an art.

Reader's Guide

Brad Bird directed Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011), his first live-action film after a career in animation. The film was a success, both critically and commercially, and demonstrated Bird's versatility as a filmmaker. He had previously worked with Pixar on The Incredibles and Ratatouille, both of which won Academy Awards. After Ghost Protocol, Bird directed Disney's Tomorrowland (2015) before returning to Pixar for Incredibles 2 (2018), which became the second-highest-grossing animated film of all time during its theatrical run.

Did You Know?

• Brad Bird was born on September 24, 1957, in Kalispell, Montana.
• He completed his first short subject, a fifteen-minute adaptation of The Tortoise and the Hare, by age 14 and sent it to Walt Disney Productions, leading to an unofficial apprenticeship with the Nine Old Men.
• Bird co-wrote the screenplay for Batteries Not Included (1987), which was a box office hit generating $65.1 million on a $25 million budget.
• Bird was fired from Disney after only two years due to his volatile attitude and criticism of senior leadership.