New Ray Gunn Images Reveal Brad Bird’s Neo-Noir Animated World
TL;DR
- New stills show Ray Gunn’s office, a music executive meeting and a hover-bike chase through Metropia.
- Matt Berry voices mob boss Francis “Slugsy” Xavier, and director Brad Bird voices two alien henchmen.
- The film premieres Oct. 10 at the BFI London Film Festival and streams on Netflix Dec. 18.
LONDON — Sept. 21, 2026 — New images from Brad Bird’s animated neo-noir Ray Gunn show a retro-futuristic Metropia, spongelike gangsters and alien henchmen, as Netflix’s film heads for its Oct. 10 world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival.
The stills, according to Esquire’s exclusive preview, come from a film that spent more than 30 years in development. For Bird, it is a chance to show that animation can reach audiences well beyond children.
“The elevator pitch I came up with is The Maltese Falcon meets Buck Rogers,” said Brad Bird, the two-time Academy Award-winning director, in a Netflix Tudum interview.
Three Decades in the Making
Bird has carried the idea since before The Iron Giant in 1999, and Disney and Warner Bros. passed on the script because of its adult-leaning tone.
The resistance puzzled the director. “How is this not good popcorn stuff?” said Bird.
Metropia Takes Shape in New Stills
The images show private eye Raymond “Ray” Gunn, voiced by Sam Rockwell, at his Discreet Investigations office and in a meeting with a slick music executive.
Another still shows Ray speeding through the city on a hover-bike with Eyera, his one-eyed alien partner, voiced by Tom Waits.
Metropia is a giant city in an alternate future imagined from a 1939 perspective, home to both humans and aliens. Bird said the look draws on an Art Deco-inspired, pre-World War II vision of ever-taller cities, flying cars and jetpacks.
Villains and Voices Join the Cast
Berry voices Slugsy, a towering, spongelike mob boss whose design draws on 1940s noir heavyweights such as Sydney Greenstreet.
Bird also joins the cast as Gunsol and Musker, Slugsy’s squat alien henchmen.
Scarlett Johansson voices pop star Venus Nova, whose scandals threaten her career and possibly her life. Patton Oswalt voices a hologram, while Kathryn Hunter, John Ratzenberger and Jamie Costa play undisclosed roles.
London Premiere Details for UK Viewers
Ray Gunn has its world premiere at the 70th BFI London Film Festival on Oct. 10, with a 2:15 p.m. screening that day, according to the BFI’s listing. The listing also shows an 11 a.m. screening Oct. 17.
Tickets start from £10 for London screenings, with £6 tickets available to 16- to 25-year-olds through BFI 25 and Under, subject to availability. Non-members pay a £1 fee per ticket for online and phone bookings, capped at £3 per transaction.
Bird will also join a BFI Screen Talk to discuss his career during the festival.
Berry, who was born in Bedfordshire, England, is best known for What We Do in the Shadows and Toast of London, giving UK audiences a home-grown name in the cast.
Rating and Release Plans
Netflix announced in June that Ray Gunn will stream Dec. 18. The film runs 119 minutes.
The Motion Picture Association rated the film PG in the United States for violence, action, language, some suggestive material and thematic elements. The BFI’s festival listing separately advises that it contains scenes of graphic violence or injury.
This article was human-curated and verified for accuracy by Elena Vane after an initial AI-assisted draft.
Elena Vane is an award-winning comics historian and pop culture journalist. Specializing in the DC/Marvel universes and independent graphic novels, Elena has been documenting the rise of cosplay culture for over a decade . She is a frequent panelist at New York Comic Con and provides in-depth biographies of industry pioneers. Elena’s expertise ensures that every comic-related update is factually grounded and community-focused .
