Ain’t It Cool News has the scoop on what may be confirmation of a long whispered rumor. Pixar creating traditional hand-drawn animated movies after Disney and DreamWorks say the format is dead? Possibly! “The word is that Pixar is starting their own 2D Animation Division. A company that will use the Pixar brand… that name which stands for supreme excellence, innovation and soul in animation today… and putting it behind the form that everyone there loves. 2D Animation. The first film? Well, Brad Bird, who is wrapping up work on The Incredibles for Pixar is apparently going to be the goto guy on this to kick it all off”.

Rumors have been floating around messageboards for awhile now that Pixar bought the animator’s desks that Disney put up for sale after the layoffs. The rumor also adds that part of Brad Bird’s contract when he signed onto Pixar would be that his next film after The Incredibles would be traditionally animated. The rumors just might be true after all.

AICN says the project is called Ray Gunn, which Brad Bird once described this way:

Well, it’s two things that are hard to sell in Hollywood. Part of it is sort of film noir, even though to me it’s only that in the surface details. Really, it’s more of an action movie, and it had a substantial amount of comedy in it. I see it as being very mainstream, but Hollywood saw it as being almost experimental, like, “Whoa, what the heck is this?” In animation, you’re always fighting against, “Well, that might upset a 5-year-old.” My feeling is, “Well, then, the 5-year-old shouldn’t go. Come on, can’t we make some other things?” Ray Gunn was not it was PG, you know? Maybe PG-13.

Last week we reported on an unheard of Pixar short called One Man Band supposedly produced by Brad Bird. Pixar sometimes uses their short films as a testing ground for upcoming feature films. Could this short be a trial run at doing a traditionally animated film?