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Brad Bird (Sort Of) Confirms 1906 is Next

by Alex Billington
October 26, 2007
Source: Rotten Tomatoes

It was way back in February when the original rumor hit about Brad Bird's next film being a live-action adaptation of 1906. Since then it's been rather quiet, largely because Bird has been finishing and promoting Ratatouille all around the world, including its recent release in Europe. Bird, who directed The Iron Giant, The Incredibles and Ratatouille, is venturing into live-action for his first time adapting the novel 1906 by James Dalessandro. Although he still won't actually mention the name publicly, Bird provides and update to Rotten Tomatoes that is obviously about 1906.

I was starting to work on a live action film a couple of years before I came on board Ratatouille so I'm going to return to that and I'm quite excited by that idea. I don't want to tell you too much about just yet, I'm not really ready for that, but it's a historical-based thing and I think it's going to be pretty wild.

The novel is a fictionalized account of the famous (and real) 1906 earthquake in San Francisco. Here's the more lengthy description: Every disaster has a backstory, none more thrilling than this one. Set during the great San Francisco earthquake and fire, this page-turning tale of political corruption, vendettas, romance, rescue—and murder—is based on recently uncovered facts that forever change our understanding of what really happened. Told by a feisty young reporter, Annalisa Passarelli, the novel paints a vivid picture of the Victorian-era city, from the mansions of Nob Hill to the underbelly of the Barbary Coast to the arrival of tenor Enrico Caruso and the Metropolitan Opera.

Given what Bird has achieved with Incredibles and Ratatouille so far, to fantastic films, I'm certainly intrigued to see how 1906 turns out. It will be an entirely different fight working live-action and not on computers, which I'm sure will present a challenge to Bird. The story itself certainly sounds like it has a lot of potential, but another disaster movie is honestly not needed at the moment. However, if anyone could pull another disaster movie off, it would be Brad Bird.

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Ryan

I think this could really go either way. It is easy to manipulate emotion with animation which he can do phenomonally but it will depend if he can do it with his actors.
Erin

Boy. I don't know about this...admittedly, when you think about it, half of the film will probably be CG so he still has his computer art but still...early 20th century never seemed his era. From what I've seen of his work, he's excelled in beautiful mid-century sort of work. But maybe it's just period pieces in general that he's good at. I can't say. But I won't judge before I see it. The man obviously has a great eye for art and story---we'll just see if it can cross over into live-action. And I mean, if Brad Bird wants to expand his artwork, far be it from me to discourage it! Lord knows I'd rather have 50 Brad Bird live-action films to one more crappy sell-out cartoon from Dreamworks.