Brad Bird’s Dazzling Neo-Noir Sci-Fi Mystery
Brad Bird has spent the better part of three decades trying to get Ray Gunn made. Now, after more than 30 years of on-and-off development, the director of The Incredibles and Ratatouille is finally bringing his passion project to the screen — and it’s unlike anything you’ve seen from him before.
Ray Gunn is a neo-noir, science fiction mystery film that blends classic detective fiction with retro-futuristic adventure. It’s set in Metropia, a gigantic city conceived as the future might have been imagined in 1939 — a world of towering Art Deco skyscrapers, flying cars, and a gritty underbelly of murder and corruption.
The film arrives on Netflix on December 18, 2026, following a limited theatrical release on December 4, including select 70mm screenings.
What Is Ray Gunn About?
The film follows Raymond “Ray” Gunn (Sam Rockwell), a hardboiled private detective who already seems like he’s from a bygone era — even in the future. With much of a private detective’s actual legwork now performed by tiny “pry bots,” Ray and his cyclopean alien partner Eye-Ra (Tom Waits) are among the last investigators still pounding the asphalt the old-fashioned way.
Then Venus Nova (Scarlett Johansson), one of Metropia’s biggest and most controversial megastars, enters his orbit — and wherever Venus goes, scandal follows. Soon, Ray is chasing a trail through Venus’s treacherous circle of hangers-on, moving between Metropia’s glamorous heights and seamy underworlds.
The elevator pitch, according to Bird himself: “The Maltese Falcon meets Buck Rogers.”
The Voice Cast: A Stellar Ensemble
Ray Gunn features one of the most impressive voice casts of any animated film in recent years.
Sam Rockwell leads as Raymond Gunn, the hardboiled detective at the center of the mystery. Rockwell’s performance has been singled out by critics as one of the film’s highlights, with one review noting he voices the character “to perfection”.
Scarlett Johansson voices Venus Nova, the troubled pop star whose scandal draws Ray into the case.
Tom Waits voices Eye-Ra (also spelled Eyera), a one-eyed alien and Ray’s closest confidant.
The supporting cast is equally stacked:
Patton Oswalt
Alan Tudyk
Matt Berry
Bobby Cannavale
Michael Chernus
Kether Donohue
Michelle Rodriguez
Aasif Mandvi
Matt Jones
Kathryn Hunter
John Ratzenberger — a longtime Pixar collaborator
Justin Peck
The Creative Team: Brad Bird’s Passion Project
Ray Gunn is directed by Brad Bird, the two-time Oscar winner behind The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. Bird wrote the screenplay with Matthew Robbins, based on his own original story.
The film was animated at Skydance Animation and Cinesite, and it represents a reunion for Bird with several key collaborators. He worked with John Lasseter at Pixar on The Incredibles and Ratatouille, and with David Ellison and Dana Goldberg at Skydance when he directed Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. Bird, Lasseter, Ellison, Goldberg, and Lisa Beroud serve as producers.
The film’s creative team also includes:
Michael Giacchino — Composer (his sixth collaboration with Bird)
Paul Felix — Production designer
Wendell Luebbe — Art director
Neysa Bové — Costume designer
Bird eventually stepped away from Pixar’s upcoming Incredibles 3 (2028) to focus on Ray Gunn. He was replaced by Peter Sohn.
The Visual Style: Shot Like a Live-Action Noir
What makes Ray Gunn visually distinctive is Bird’s deliberate decision to shoot it like a live-action film noir — not a typical CG animated feature.
For Cinesite VFX supervisor Adel Abada and the cinematography team, that meant resisting some of the conventions that have developed around CG animation. One important change was bringing layout and lighting together much earlier than usual, allowing Bird to make decisions more like a director standing on a physical set.
“Our approach was, we’re making a movie, we’re making a film,” Abada said. “Let’s use the language that cinematography has entirely given us.”
The team’s major touchstone was Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, particularly in establishing a lens package for the film. Bird frequently pushed the crew toward a 28mm lens, even though lenses that wide can distort animated characters.
Bird also drew inspiration from 70mm photography. “Most detective movies are shot old 1.33 and spherical,” he said. “So my inspiration also was 70 millimeter, which is widescreen aspect ratio, but spherical lenses.”
The team embraced a simple rule: “Don’t be afraid of the shadow.” “If a character goes in shadow, then he goes in shadow,” Abada said. “Lighting is not beauty; it’s a storytelling tool just like animation.”
Bird also pointed to a technique associated with John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon: showing ceilings. “We did that more in this film,” Bird said. “Kind of makes people look big too, which is cool.”
The scale of the film was enormous. Ray Gunn was produced in roughly 18 months and contains around 1,800 shots spread across 35 sequences. Eight sequences take place outside, and about half of those are chases through a city designed to rise a mile into the air.
The Music: Michael Giacchino and Kimbra
The score for Ray Gunn was composed by Michael Giacchino, recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London with a 74-piece orchestra. The score was recorded in Studio One, the iconic room that has hosted musical legends from Edward Elgar to Harry Styles.
Giacchino and Bird have a long history together. Giacchino’s first major film score was The Incredibles, and Ray Gunn marks their sixth project together. Giacchino recalled Bird’s brutally honest first phone call: “Your music could ruin my movie… if you and I are not on the same page every step of the way, the audience is going to start thinking things we don’t want them to think.”
For the songs performed by Venus Nova, Bird turned to New Zealand singer-songwriter Kimbra. “A friend of mine who’s a wonderful animator… kept going, you got to hear Kimbra,” Bird said. “And when I realized that this thing was actually going to get funding, that we could go to her and have her write the Venus Nova songs.”
The Long Road to the Screen
Ray Gunn has been in Brad Bird’s imagination for more than three decades. He first had the idea after watching a trailer for the then-upcoming Peter Gunn (1989). The film was intended to be produced by Turner Feature Animation in the 1990s, but was shelved when Bird directed 1999’s The Iron Giant for Warner Bros.
In 2021, Bird signed a deal with Skydance Animation to direct Ray Gunn — a move that reunited him with John Lasseter, who had been ousted from Pixar in 2017.
At the Ottawa International Animation Festival in September 2026, Bird and several of the artists who finally helped him make the film offered one of the most detailed looks yet at how the long-gestating sci-fi noir was put together. The presentation featured Bird alongside Cinesite VFX supervisor Adel Abada, Skydance Animation costume designer Neysa Bové, and Cinesite head of character animation Jason Ryan.
Why Ray Gunn Matters
Ray Gunn isn’t just another animated film. It’s a statement about what animation can be.
Bird has been vocal about his desire to push animation “less towards the kiddies table”. He told Variety that making animated films for teens and adults “shouldn’t be a controversial decision”.
“I like both of those genres,” Bird said of detective noir and sci-fi. “And blending them together seemed fun, and a chance to play with a lot of very cinematic elements and extreme characters.”
“Animation is too fun a medium, and too interesting, to limit what kind of stories can be told,” he added.
Release Date and Theatrical Run
Ray Gunn opens in select theaters on December 4, 2026, including a limited number of 70mm screenings. It then begins streaming on Netflix on December 18, 2026.
The film has a runtime of 1 hour 59 minutes and a reported budget of $150 million.
Ray Gunn is Brad Bird’s
30-year passion project finally brought to life. With a stellar voice cast led by Sam Rockwell, Scarlett Johansson, and Tom Waits, a score by Michael Giacchino recorded at Abbey Road, and a visual style that draws from Chinatown and The Maltese Falcon, it’s one of the most ambitious animated films of the year.
It’s a neo-noir mystery set in a retro-futuristic city of towering skyscrapers and alien detectives. It’s a story about a “flameout” of a detective trying to make sense of a changing world. And it’s a reminder that animation isn’t just for kids.
Ray Gunn hits select theaters on December 4 and Netflix on December 18, 2026.
