Brad Bird Spent Three Decades Bringing the Last Human Detective to the Screen

Ray Gunn, the new animated film from Brad Bird, director of The Iron Giant, The Incredibles and Ratatouille, has its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on 10 October. Sam Rockwell voices the hero and Scarlett Johansson a pop star in trouble.

The film was made by Skydance Animation on a budget of more than 150 million dollars. It opens in select cinemas on 4 December and on Netflix on 18 December.

What the film is about

Ray Gunn is the last human private detective in Metropia, a futuristic city where humans live alongside aliens. The husband of famous singer Venus Nova hires him when a scandal threatens to destroy her career. Bird describes the film as a detective story in an alternate future: “If you mashed up The Maltese Falcon with Buck Rogers, it might be something like that. But hopefully with a bit more action and funnier.”

Who voices whom

• Sam Rockwell as Ray Gunn;
• Scarlett Johansson as Venus Nova;
• Tom Waits as Eyera, Ray’s colleague;
• Matt Berry as mob boss Francis “Slugsy” Xavier;
• Bobby Cannavale as Arnold Dom, Venus’s husband;
• Alan Tudyk as Barry Vogel, her manager;
• Kathryn Hunter, Michael Chernus and Patton Oswalt.

Brad Bird himself voices two of Slugsy’s henchmen.

A long road

Bird came up with the character in the late 1980s, and in the 1990s the project was developed at Turner Feature Animation. After Turner merged with Time Warner it was shelved, and Bird made The Iron Giant instead while keeping the rights to Ray Gunn. He only signed with Skydance in 2021. In 2023 the studio switched the film from hand-drawn to computer animation. Bird stepped away from directing Incredibles 3 to focus on Ray Gunn.

Bird co-wrote the screenplay with Matthew Robbins. Michael Giacchino, who has scored every Bird film since The Incredibles, wrote the music, and New Zealand singer Kimbra wrote three songs for Johansson’s character. Darren Holmes edited the film, which runs 119 minutes.

When to watch

The premiere is in London on 10 October, the cinema release on 4 December and the Netflix release on 18 December. The first seven minutes were already shown in June at the Annecy animation festival. Cast and stills are on the film’s page in our AMDB database.