Star Wars 7 Won't Be Directed by Brad Bird, but He'll Be "First in Line" to See it

Incredibles auteur shoots down rumors that his next mission might be in a galaxy far, far away

Though he loves his Star Wars like everybody else, as Yoda might say, directing he is not.

Brad Bird, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind Pixar's The Incredibles and Ratatouille who made his live-action debut with Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol, has taken himself out of the running from shepherding Star Wars: Episode VII to the big screen.

Answering a question posed by one of his 50,000 followers as to whether he's doing the just-announced new episode and suggesting he'd be perfect for the job, Bird replied: "Thanks. But the science fiction film I AM doing is gonna be cool."

The 55-year-old helmer noted that he's actually signed on to direct George Clooney in 1952, a supersecret sci-fi blockbuster for Disney written by Damon Lindelof and Jeff Jensen that's said to be in the spirit of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Bird then tweeted his admiration for the team the Mouse House has hired to resurrect the famed franchise in the wake of the studio purchasing the rights and Lucasfilm from top Jedi George Lucas.

"That said, Michael Arndt is a fantastic writer and [Lucasfilm honcho] Kathy Kennedy is a brilliant producer. I will be first in line to see the new Star Wars," he added.

Bird is currently putting the finishing touches on his next cinematic extravaganza, 1906, an effects-heavy disaster flick about the San Francisco earthquake of that year.