Ray Gunn

A private eye's last case, forty years in the making

Few animated films carry a production history this tangled. Brad Bird first conceived this detective story decades ago, shelved it when Warner Bros. absorbed Turner Feature Animation, and only revived it after signing with Skydance Animation in 2021. The result lands on Netflix as one of the most anticipated auteur animation projects of the decade.

Bird switched the film from hand-drawn to computer animation partway through development, a choice that trimmed budget but keeps the retrofuturist, 1930s-40s pulp aesthetic he has described intact. Composer Michael Giacchino, a Bird regular since The Incredibles, provides the score, and the director has openly named The Maltese Falcon and Chinatown as touchstones for tone and structure.

The Story

Raymond "Ray" Gunn is the last human private detective working the streets of a city called Metropia, where humans and aliens share the same crumbling noir architecture. The plot kicks off around a scandal threatening to destroy, or kill, a famous pop star. Bird has pitched it, half-jokingly, as "The Maltese Falcon mashed up with Buck Rogers."

This marks Bird's first fully original directing project since The Incredibles franchise, made outside Pixar for the first time in his career.

The Ideal Audience

Bird has been explicit that this skews older than his Pixar work, dense with genre plotting and hardboiled atmosphere rather than kid-first gags. Viewers drawn to noir mysteries and retrofuturist design will find the most to chew on here. Younger children expecting a typical family cartoon may find the mood and pacing unfamiliar.