Director Brad Bird’s upcoming animated movie Ray Gunn is fascinating for a host of reasons, just one of which is the fact that the celebrated filmmaker originally began working on the project in the 1990s. However, with various factors getting in the film’s way over the years—including Bird’s work on major movies like The Incredibles and Ratatouille—the movie was put on the back burner, and its fate, at times, was unclear. Thankfully, Ray Gunn was only temporarily shelved, not fully abandoned, and it now has a confirmed release date.
In fact, the release date is yet another fascinating aspect of this new movie, as it is scheduled to hit Netflix on December 18, a date that has begun to somewhat jokingly be called “Dunesday,” because it marks the theatrical release of both Dune 3 and Avengers: Doomsday. Both are massive movie rollouts tied to even more massive franchises, and it seems like neither one is backing down as December draws nearer and nearer. While it won’t hit the big screen, Ray Gunn is part of that same release-heavy day. Yet, no one should count Ray Gunn out. With years of work under its belt, this movie will undoubtedly be a force to be reckoned with, and now, Bird has shared insight into what’s changed over the years and how he feels about the final product exclusively with ComicBook.
Ray Gunn centers on protagonist Raymond Gunn, a private eye living in the retro-futuristic city of Metropia, which is home to both humans and aliens. However, Ray is the odd one out, as detective work has largely been taken over by machines in this alternate future. Already, the cast is confirmed to be star-studded, with Sam Rockwell playing the titular lead and MCU star Scarlett Johansson voicing a starlet named Venus Nova. With such a premise, it makes sense that the narrative would have changed over the decades. Yet, Bird confirmed that the alterations weren’t actually all that extensive.
Speaking exclusively to ComicBook at San Diego Comic Con, Bird shared, “On a broader level, it’s the same movie, and it has the same characters and the same ending and the same sort of structure. But how information was delivered shifted, as it always does when you’re making a film. You know what points you want to make, whether they’re plot or character things you want to say, but oftentimes, where you say them changes. You find different contexts to say them in a way that makes them more effective.”
Regarding finally seeing this movie about to be released, Bird said, “I’m really happy with it. I mean, everyone rallied, and it was an ambitious film, meaning it was scary. When people first got involved, they were like, ‘Oh, jeez,’ because the margin for error was narrow on it, narrower than something like The Incredibles. It was easy to do too little, and it was easy to do too much, and it had to be right in there. And at first, that’s daunting because it’s challenging. You want to explore it, and you want it to be caricatured and take advantage of the medium.”
“But you also want the audience to feel emotional about the characters when you want them to be…it’s not like broccoli. It’s a fun movie to watch, but there are moments where you need to believe that the characters are real beings with the past, present, and future,” he added.
With such a unique history, a creative mind like Bird’s at the helm, and a cast of stars audiences already know and love, Ray Gunn is absolutely one to watch—yes, even on a day that is already packed with major movie releases.
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