While MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III (2006) may not have been a box-office sensation as one might hoped, there's no denying that Tom Cruise and director J.J. Abrams has easily the best and most entertaining movie in the franchise. And now, J.J. Abrams is stepping away from the director's seat in favor for Brad Bird (THE INCREDIBLES, RATATOUILLE) and becoming a producer instead.
The fourth entry, entitled MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL which sees the return of Tom Cruise who plays Ethan Hunt and Jeremy Renner, has producer J.J Abrams ranting about Brad Bird's filmmaking style. Here's what he had to say via phone interview from MTV Movies Blog.
"I couldn't be more excited about that. Not only is the movie coming along, but what I've seen is kind of unbelievable. It's so weird to watch scenes for a movie by a director that feels so of that director's style, and yet you realize you've never ever seen a live-action film by that director. You watch moments where you go, 'That's so Brad Bird!' And then you realize, oh, it's so weird to have seen a Brad Bird moment with actual flesh and blood actors."
Besides that, Abrams also praised the credibility of Bird's screenwriting talent.
"He's a filmmaker who has happened to use animation as a medium, but it's his filmmaking and his characters and his rhythm and his comedy, the action he can do, it's just the humanity that he's done that comes through in movies that have happened to be animated. Seeing that kind of nuance in a movie with people is just, I'm just so thrilled to be a part of it all. I haven't seen the whole thing, but what I have seen is sort of mind-blowing."
That said, I'm now officially having faith with Brad Bird to make an excellent transition from animation to his first live-action feature. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL will fused into theaters on December 2011.