Brad Bird officially on for M:I4

Pixar director Brad The Incredibles Bird has officially signed up to direct Tom Cruise in a fourth Mission: Impossible .

The news comes just as Paramount have announced the release date for Mission: Impossible 4 has been nudged back to 16 December 2011, which is later than originally expected.

Tom Cruise has confirmed that he will be returning as Ethan Hunt, while Mission: Impossible III ’s director J.J. Abrams will be overseeing proceedings as co-producer.

Bird has directed two animated films to Oscar-winning glory – The Incredibles and Ratatouille – but is less known for helming live action projects.

To date, his sole live action directing credit is an episode of Amazing Stories . Still, if M:I4 brings in the big bucks (we’re pretty sure it will), it would give a boost to Bird’s long-digesting pet project 1906 .

Having languished in pre-production and budgetary woes for a while now, 1906 is a live action flick about the San Francisco earthquake in that year, and the aftershocks of the historical event.

Source: [ Empire ]

Think Bird’s up for an impossible mission? Or rather he just direct 1906 ?

Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.