"I was also very taken by the movie The Incredibles. I think our show draws more from that than anything else. That, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I literally saw those two movies almost back to back ... I can point to both of them as inspirations for Heroes."

[... Creator Tim] Kring says, "I wanted to do something Kaufman-esque, with hyper-anonymous kind of characters, people you would pass on the street and never think twice about, you would never think that those characters would have something extraordinary happen to them." (Source)