Since his directorial debut The Iron Giant in 1999, Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Ratatouille, The Simpsons) has been challenging audiences’ expectations of what animated films can do … and who they can be for. “There’s a big chunk of people who don’t watch animation,” Bird tells Tudum. “That’s a group I’m anxious to persuade because it’s an amazing art form that is way too limited in people’s minds.”
His latest, Ray Gunn, is the Academy Award winning director’s method of blurring the lines between animation and art. Ray Gunn has been percolating in the director’s mind for more than 30 years — since even before The Iron Giant — and in those decades, despite the many transformations in animation technology and the film industry at large, the fundamental concept has never changed. “It was always meant to be a blend of sci-fi and classic detective movies from the ’40s,” says Bird. “The elevator pitch I came up with is The Maltese Falcon meets Buck Rogers.”
The plot follows the city of Metropia, a gigantic city in an alternate future as seen from 1939, private eye Raymond Gunn is drawn into a case involving aliens, murder, and a multimedia star named Venus Nova. The film blends retrofuturism with the neo noir genre of the ’40s, with fast-talking dialogue, Transatlantic accents, and darkened hallways.
Oscar winner Rockwell (The White Lotus, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) voices Ray Gunn, a small-time private eye in a time when most detective work has been taken over by machines. “Sam is a wonderful actor, and he does a fantastic job giving the animators a bar to reach in terms of performance,” says Bird.
Academy Award nominee Johansson (Jurassic World Rebirth, Marriage Story) voices the femme fatale Venus Nova, the world’s most famous pop star whose scandals threaten to destroy her career — and may even cost her her life.
Grammy winner and Oscar nominee Tom Waits plays Eyera, Ray’s most trusted compatriot, who also happens to be a one-eyed alien.
More casting announcements are still to come, but the voice talent all have something in common. “The main thing is, in animation, you want a voice cast that animators can listen to over and over again,” explains Bird. “A line that takes an actor five seconds to say may take an animator three weeks to animate, and they will listen to a line hundreds of times in order to get the cadence in order so that their gestures support what’s happening, and keeping them inspired is a huge win. All the best voice actors do that.”
No trailer has been released yet, but based on Bird’s previous filmography, it would be just as fantastic.
Ray Gunn is set to stream on December 18th of this year, only on Netflix.
