Pixar chief Pete Docter has revealed that director Brad Bird is hard at work on 'Incredibles 3'.

The upcoming animated flick was announced recently at Disney's D23 showcase and the studio boss explained how the filmmaker is in the process of crafting the picture featuring the family of superheroes.

He told Fandango: "Brad [Bird] is an amazing collaborator. He's so fiery and passionate. Different people work in different ways.

"He's a guy who needs a little more time to build up the steam to get the passion and the power going. I think we're at that point now. And we're not sharing any details right now, because it's still pretty malleable in terms of what the story is actually about."

Docter also praised the filmmaker for incorporating "deeper sociological ideas" into his animated movies.

He said: "The great thing about Brad's films, when you look at 'Ratatouille', on one level, it's a fun romp about a rat that wants to cook.

"But, really when you dig deeper, it's about, 'What does it take to do that?' The passion versus opportunity. He's always got these deeper sociological ideas and so I think that's where we're starting from."

'Incredibles 3' will follow on from the events of its 2018 predecessor, which itself picked up immediately after the first movie – despite the 14-year gap between the two entries.

Previously, Bird said he thought it was "bold" to have ignored the passing of time between the movies.

Speaking to SciFiNow magazine, he said: "I had half thought about ageing them up a little bit but the minute you do you lose a lot of the iconic power of the idea.

"Because we're not limited to linear ageing the way live-action films are, where if an actor is 10 years older, you better write a line in there where they talk about being 10 years older or the audience isn't going to go for it. We're not limited in that way.

"As long as your voice hasn't changed much we can pick up where the last movie left off.

"For me, the boldest thing that a movie that's taken 14 years to happen can do is pick up right where the last movie left off. Who else can do that? No one, so we did it."