Ars Technica3 hours agoCulture3 min readUnited States

Netflix releases new trailer for Ray Gunn

The director's long-gestating noir sci-fi film features Sam Rockwell, Scarlett Johansson, and Tom Waits

Quick Look

Brad Bird's animated noir sci-fi film Ray Gunn, co-written with Matthew Robbins and starring Sam Rockwell and Scarlett Johansson, releases on Netflix December 18, 2026, with select theatrical screenings December 4, 2026.

AI-generated summary

Why It Matters

Brad Bird has directed animated films including The Iron Giant (1999), The Incredibles (2004), and Ratatouille (2007), with the latter two winning Oscars. He has been developing Ray Gunn for approximately 30 years. The film was inspired by the B-52s' song Planet Claire, which Bird initially mistook for a cover of Henry Mancini's Peter Gunn theme music.

Font size

We caught the first trailer for the upcoming Netflix animated film Ray Gunn in September and were charmed by director Brad Bird's blend of a Jetsons-like future with classic 1930s noir detective thrillers. Bird has described it as a mashup of The Maltese Falcon and Buck Rogers, and the latest trailer definitely gives off that energy.

As previously reported, Bird has directed some of our all-time favorite animated films: The Iron Giant (1999), The Incredibles (2004), and Ratatouille (2007), with the latter two snagging well-deserved Oscar wins. He's been kicking around the idea for Ray Gunn for the last 30 years, working on his many other film projects while the Ray Gunn script—co-written by Matthew Robbins, who also co-wrote 1987's Batteries Not Included with Bird—"stayed in a filing cabinet at Warner Brothers," the director said earlier this year.

The film's inspiration came when Bird heard the opening of the B-52s' "Planet Claire" (a personal favorite that also provides the soundtrack to the new trailer) and initially thought it was a cover of Henry Mancini's theme music from the classic TV show Peter Gunn. Bird is a longtime fan of film noir and hard-boiled detectives, and he came up with the idea of a futuristic detective named Ray Gunn (a pun on "raygun," of course). "It's film noir and a hard-boiled detective story, but it's got a lot more comedy and a lot more action than the average film noir," said Bird.

Per the official premise: "In Metropia, a gigantic city in an alternate future as seen from 1939, private eye Raymond Gunn (voiced by Sam Rockwell) is drawn into a case involving aliens, murder, and a multimedia star named Venus Nova (voiced by Scarlett Johansson)."

Unlike Bird's Pixar fare, Ray Gunn targets a slightly older demographic with more mature themes.

In addition to Rockwell and Johansson, the all-star voice cast includes Tom Waits as Ray's one-eyed alien colleague, Eyera (pronounced Ira); Matt Berry as alien mob boss Francis "Sluggy" Xavier; Bobby Cannavale as Venus' husband, who hires Ray to spy on his wife; Alan Tudyk as Venus' manager, Barry Vogel; Michael Chernus as a studio fixer named Sam; and Patton Oswalt as a hologram. Bird himself provides the voices for Xavier's alien henchmen, Gunsol and Musker. Kathryn Hunter, John Ratzenberger, and Jamie Costa will also voice as-yet-undisclosed characters.

Ray Gunn releases on Netflix on December 18, 2026—the same day both Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part 3 hit theaters, so it will be alternative family fare for those disinclined to brave the holiday theatrical crowds. The film will also screen in select theaters on December 4, 2026.