THE INCREDIBLES 2 Director Brad Bird Admits That The Film's Connection To The #MeToo Movement Is Coincidental

The upcoming film is coming out at a time where diversity and gender equality are huge discussion points, so for many it’s exciting to see the spotlight shine on the strong female character this time around. Many people have read further into it than even the filmmakers anticipated and view it as Pixar making some kind of statement on the matter. 

Screen Rant visited Pixar Animation Studios during a press day earlier this month, and the film's director Brad Bird was asked about diversity in The Incredibles films. He brought up the #MeToo movement in his response, claiming he's had Helen's evolution in-mind since the first film.

We are just telling the story we want to tell. Some people have remarked – we just started talking about this – that we geared this towards the #MeToo movement because it’s got a female lead and all this stuff. I had that idea right on the heels of the first film. That’s the oldest idea in this movie, that and exploring Jack Jack’s powers. We don’t really respond to whatever the thing of the moment is because our lead times are so long. We just gotta tell the stories we want to tell.

Bird started writing the script for The Incredibles 2 back in 2015, years before the Harvey Weinstein scandal flipped Hollywood inside-out. #MeToo, #TimesUp, and any other related campaign were not prevalent a few years ago, so it would've been quite difficult/implausible for Bird to integrate them into the narrative.

What do you think about the director's comments?