Brad Bird’s decades-long quest to bring a noir detective to a futuristic city

Cultures · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: After languishing in development for decades, Brad Bird’s Ray Gunn is finally arriving. This animated neo-noir mystery follows the last human private detective in a sprawling, alien-inhabited metropolis. Inspired by 1940s cinema and a misheard song title, the project represents a bold, adult-oriented departure from the director’s previous studio work.

The origins of Ray Gunn trace back to the late 1980s, when Brad Bird first conceived of a detective character with a pun-based name after mishearing the B-52s' song Planet Claire as a version of the Peter Gunn theme. Bird, a devotee of classic film noir, sought to blend the atmosphere of movies like The Maltese Falcon and Chinatown with a retrofuturist setting. Early attempts to produce the film, including a collaboration with Jerry Rees on a project based on The Spirit, were abandoned due to a lack of financier confidence. Later, in the 1990s, the project was shelved at Turner Feature Animation when Bird shifted his focus to direct The Iron Giant.

Revived in 2021 through a deal with Skydance Animation, the film reunites Bird with long-time collaborators, including composer Michael Giacchino and producers John Lasseter, David Ellison, and Dana Goldberg. Unlike Bird’s previous work at Pixar, which he felt did not suit the film’s mature sensibilities, Ray Gunn is designed for an older audience. The production, which features a budget of over $150 million, transitioned from its original hand-drawn concept to computer animation. The story centers on Raymond Gunn, a detective navigating the city of Metropia, who is hired by Arnold Dom to investigate his wife, the pop star Venus Nova.

The film’s voice cast includes Sam Rockwell as the titular detective, Scarlett Johansson as Venus Nova, and Tom Waits as an alien colleague. The project’s development has been so significant that it led Bird to step away from directing Incredibles 3. With a world premiere scheduled for October 10, 2026, at the BFI London Film Festival, the film marks the culmination of a creative journey that spanned nearly forty years, finally bringing Bird’s vision of a hard-boiled, futuristic mystery to the screen via Netflix.

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