Brad Bird has given us some truly great animated movies: The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille. Now, he’s set to return with Ray Gunn, a passion project that he’s been trying to get off the ground for decades. Empire has dropped a new image from Ray Gunn, featuring the main character wielding a sci-fi weapon.
Brad Bird on Ray Gunn
Bird told Empire that the character is “pretty much your Main Street private detective. A hard-bitten character, but not without a sense of humour.“
Ray Gunn is voiced by the great Sam Rockwell, and Bird was thrilled by his performance. “Sam is just an amazing actor, and he’s quirky and unpredictable,” Bird said. “He never phones it in. It inspires you to bring something to the table as an animator.“
At the end of the day, Bird said that Ray Gunn is just going to be a good time. “It has no shortage of thoughts in it. But it’s primarily meant to be good with a box full of popcorn,” Bird said. “It’s meant to be a really good time. There’s a lot more action in this movie than a normal noir, and there’s more comedy. It’s a blend of things going on at once.“
All About Ray Gunn
The logline reads: “In 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.” In addition to Rockwell, the film features the voices of Scarlett Johansson as Venus Nova and Tom Waits as Eyera, Ray’s most trusted compatriot, who is also a one-eyed alien.
I mentioned that Bird has been working on the project for decades, and I wasn’t kidding. He first came up with the idea in the ’90s, but it was shelved when he directed The Iron Giant.
“RAY GUNN has been in my mind for over 30 years. The film is a blend of sci-fi and classic detective movies from the ’40s…it’s Maltese Falcon meets Buck Rogers. I’ve been a fan of both of those sort of genres, and blending them together seemed fun, and a chance to play with a lot of very cinematic elements, and extreme characters,” he said. “There’s a big chunk of people who don’t watch animation. 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. Animation as a medium is too interesting to limit what kind of stories can be told.“
The film is set to be released on Netflix later this year.
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