Upcoming Animated Sci-Fi Film "Ray Gunn" Blends Mystery and Futuristic Elements
Charlotte Adams
Updated on May 17, 2026
By Published Apr 9, 2026, 10:00 AM EDT Matthew Rudoy is one of ScreenRant's Movie & TV News Editors. He covers the latest in movie & TV news, with a focus on major franchises like Star Wars, The Boys, and Game of Thrones, and also writes some features and reviews. He wrote lists for ScreenRant from 2017-2026, became a news writer in 2026, a senior staff writer in 2026, and an editor in 2026. follow Follow followed Followed Like Like Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap
returns to science fiction and reunites with a Marvel Cinematic Universe star in an upcoming Netflix movie.
Johansson is well versed in science fiction, including her role as Zora Bennett in 2026's box office smash hit Jurassic World Rebirth, voicing Elita-1 in Transformers One, time traveling as , voicing an artificially intelligent operating system that Joaquin Phoenix's character falls in love with in Her, and playing a clone in Michael Bay's The Island.
Now, Johansson has been cast in Netflix's Ray Gunn, a new animated science-fiction movie directed by Academy Award winner Brad Bird. She voices a multimedia star named Venus Nova who gets caught up in a case involving murder and aliens in the city of Metropia. The detective on the case is Ray Gunn, voiced by Sam Rockwell, reuniting him with Johansson after both starred in the MCU's Iron Man 2 and in Taika Waititi's Jojo Rabbit. The upcoming Netflix movie cast also features Tom Waits voicing a character called Eyera. Check out the first-look images of the characters and the futuristic city of Metropia below:
Bird, who has previously directed the The Incredibles and Ratatouille, shared how Ray Gunn has been decades in the making, along with the classic stories that inspired it, and how he wants the film to push past the limits that viewers often associate with animation. Johansson expressed her longtime enthusiasm for Bird's work and Ray Gunn being "a total realization of where Brad is currently on his artistic journey." Read Bird and Johansson's comments below:
Brad Bird: 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. 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.
Scarlett Johansson: Having the opportunity to collaborate with Brad Bird is a career milestone for me; I have loved his work my entire life. This project is so uniquely special because it is a total realization of where Brad is currently on his artistic journey. I can’t wait for audiences to see this extraordinary animation that looks like nothing else out there.
Ray Gunn is coming to Netflix later in 2026, with a more specific release date still to come. The story comes from Bird, who co-wrote the screenplay with Matthew Robbins. He is also a producer alongside former Pixar veteran John Lasseter, Lisa Beroud, and David Ellison and Dana Goldberg from Skydance Animation. The movie's official logline describes the setting as "Metropia, a gigantic city in an alternate future as seen from 1939," which explains how the classic detective influences co-exist with futuristic sci-fi elements as seen in the first-look images.
After KPop Demon Hunters became , along with winning two Academy Awards and receiving extensive critical acclaim, Ray Gunn is another addition to the streamer's growing slate of original animated features. Others include Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, The Sea Beast, Nimona, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, Klaus, and The Mitchells vs. The Machines.
In addition to the prior movies he was in with Johansson, her Ray Gunn co-star Rockwell is known for his Academy Award-winning role in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, his Emmy Award-nominated performance in The White Lotus, and most recently for playing The Man from the Future in Gore Verbinski's Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die.
Sam Rockwell played villain Justin Hammer in Iron Man 2 while Scarlett Johansson made her MCU debut as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow.
Beyond their collaboration in Ray Gunn, Scarlett Johansson and Brad Bird have several high-profile franchise projects coming up. Johansson is starring in Mike Flanagan's The Exorcist reboot and is reportedly going to be in The Batman - Part II. Bird is writing the screenplay for The Incredibles 3, but after directing the two previous installments, this sequel will be helmed by Peter Sohn, who directed Pixar's The Good Dinosaur and Elemental.
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