Brad Bird was a gigging animator and a future Pixar powerhouse when he conceived of The Iron Giant, a Cold War sci-fi tale set in a small East Coast coastal town that showed a relationship between loner kid Hogarth (Eli Marienthal) and a gigantic extra-terrestrial war machine, whom he nicknames Giant (voiced by Vin Diesel). It’s a story that went from box office underperformer to cult favorite to canonized classic.
