Pixar Legend Confirms ‘Ratatouille 2’ Isn’t Happening, but There’s a Catch [Exclusive]

More than ever, Pixar has shown it's open to serving up sequels to some of its most beloved films. Toy Story, for instance, releases its fifth installment this week, coming off the billion-dollar success of the animation banner's last follow-up, Inside Out 2. On the horizon, Peter Sohn is also directing a threequel to The Incredibles due to hit theaters in 2028. Across the past ten years, stemming back to Finding Dory in 2016, nearly half of Pixar's films have been connected in some way to one of their existing worlds. As far as Brad Bird is concerned, though, there's one animated masterpiece that won't be coming back for seconds as long as he has his say.

In a recent interview with Collider's Steve Weintraub for his new Ray Gunn movie, Bird was asked if Pixar's sequel-making strategy could ever extend to Ratatouille. The heartwarming 2007 feature is still beloved as one of Disney's best works, setting a record for an animated film at the time with five Oscar nominations, including a win for Best Animated Feature. It tells a delightful, contained story of Remy (Patton Oswalt), a culinarily inclined rat who longs to be a professional chef like his idol, the late Chef Auguste Gusteau (Brad Garrett), and Linguini (Lou Romano), the garbage boy working at Gusteau's restaurant. Working together, Remy gets to live out his fantasy, using Linguini as a vessel to channel his talents in the kitchen, with hilarious complications as they try to keep the young rodent from being found. Though Gusteau's is closed in the end, just about everyone ends up much happier for it, with Linguini, Remy, and Collette (Janeane Garofalo) opening their own successful bistro named for the dish that warmed the fierce Anton Ego's (Peter O'Toole) heart.

Bird admitted that some folks at Pixar have tested the waters with him about returning to Paris once more, but he's content with where the story ended. He's very much of the mind that not all movies have to continue and explore where their characters went afterward, especially when the original ending was already so satisfying. It's not just Ratatouille he's thinking about, either, as he also throws cold water on the prospect of revisiting another of his animated films that has since become an iconic cult classic. When Weintraub asked Bird if he had any interest in a sequel, he said:

"No. I don't. 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."

Your answers point to the iconic universe your values, your instincts, and your particular way of seeing the world were built for. This is where you would find your people — and your purpose.

You believe in the cause — in the idea that freedom is worth fighting for even when the odds are impossible and the empire is vast.

You understand, in the deepest part of yourself, that the journey matters as much as the destination — and that the world's beauty is worth protecting even at great cost.

You believe that love, loyalty, and doing what's right are not naive sentiments — they are the most powerful forces in any world, magical or otherwise.

You see the world clearly — its power structures, its hypocrisies, its brutal arithmetic — and you are not paralysed by that clarity. You use it.

You believe the future is worth building — that curiosity, cooperation, and the expansion of understanding are not just ideals but the most practical path forward for any civilisation.

While returning to La Ratatouille to catch up with Remy and Linguini is off the menu, Bird views The Incredibles in a different light. His 2004 superhero smash hit was fortunate enough to get a sequel a full 14 years later, turning the spotlight on Elastigirl (Holly Hunter) and showing that the superpowered family still had more room to explore. Though he isn't directing the third installment, he's still penning the script for Sohn, and he told Weintraub that, unlike Ratatouille, the door is very much open for more battles with the Parrs. "Now, The Incredibles — I could see another Incredibles film." In the meantime, he has his long-gestating neo-noir adult animated project, Ray Gunn, on the horizon, set to finally release on Netflix this year with Sam Rockwell in the lead role as the titular private eye.

Ratatouille is available to stream on Disney+. Stay tuned here at Collider for more on what's next for Bird.