If David Ellison wants a ticket to the Oscars this year it most likely won’t be with anything from Paramount or even (so far) from Warner Bros, but if you said Netflix you might be on the right track. Ray Gunn, from Oscar-winning filmmaker Brad Bird (Ratatouille, The Incredibles), comes out of Skydance Animation‘s original deal with the streamer, counts Ellison among its producers, and is the kind of smart, visually sumptuous and clever ‘toon that is ripe for the Best Animated Feature category.

Having its world premiere Saturday at the London Film Festival, Ray Gunn is a throwback to Bogart-style film noir detective classics like The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep and other ’40s gems that come out of the Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Sam Spade mode. Throw in a little Chinatown via Jack Nicholson or Altman’s The Long Goodbye, or Robert Mitchum in Farewell My Lovely, and you get the idea, and then think elements of The Jetsons or Who Framed Roger Rabbit animated hits, marry them with Blade Runner, and then toss in a bit of Madonna in Dick Tracy, take a visit to the Star Wars bar, stir them all together and you have something approximating the world Bird has cooked up here.

In other words it is a love letter to the movies past and futuristic. They call its main setting, Metropia, an “alternate future” channeling 1939, and that seems about right.

No matter what the inspirations, and there were clearly many, they all come from cinema and that’s a delicious thing here. Bird, who also wrote the nifty script with Matthew Robbins, has been blessed to collect a sensational voice cast to match an intriguing bunch of characters who make up this mashup.

Chief among them is Sam Rockwell‘s Ray Gunn, an analog private dick in a digital planet. The methods he uses are mainly all AI’ed in this futureworld, but he operates like its San Francisco circa 1941, handling cases with his partner in grime Eye Ra Kadock (a wonderful Tom Waits), a cyclopian alien at the ready for any assignment that comes their way. And boy do they get a doozy when sultry Venus Nova (Scarlett Johansson), a troubled pop superstar, walks in the door. Of course its all about a murder she is accused of, one of her ex-husbands, and the timing couldn’t be worse for her beleaguered record company Megamax, now run by her first hubby and manager Barry Vogel (Alan Tudyk). Gunn is hired to keep her out of trouble, something she constantly finds herself in. Could there also be an instant attraction here? They don’t need the scandal or the nagging competition from Slugsy (Matt Berry), an alien mob boss who would like to bring Venus back under his purview. There are all sorts of sides to Venus, a lot of shady characters complicating things, and in pure Bogie-Bacall fashion Ray gets to sort them all out while dealing with this colorful group.

Using vibarant CGI techniques to bring this world to life, Bird and his talented artisans manage to successfully merge two very different worlds, centuries apart in a cohesive and viable original universe that somehow seems right. You don’t have to be a fan of noir and Dark City detective yarns to appreciate the story, and it doesn’t matter if you aren’t a sci-fi aficionado either. The human/alien blend blends and helps to make this Skydance Animation production an entertaining proposition for adults and even their kids who get dragged to see it, rather than the usual other way around for ‘toons.

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Rockwell is the perfect lead here, his voice work right on target as a guy who is trying to hang on in a world passing his old-school style right by. Johansson, as the PR nightmare pop diva, matches him and even gets to show off her musical chops in a couple of the songs provided by New Zealand’s Kimba. Among the rest of the cast, Bobby Cannavale scores as Arnold Dam, co-owner of the Moon Room, the place where Venus sound-alike Levity Love (Kether Donohue) performs covers of her hits. Working the cop beat is Police Capt. Roz Drexler, nicely etched by Michelle Rodriguez. There’s also former cop Sam Stelfreeze (Michael Chernus) in the mix, and among others the slimy ralien smuggler Vanzine Kaluta (Kathryn Hunter).

Setting the shifting moods expertly is Michael Giacchino’s score that nicely avoids the clichés of the genre(s) while still honoring them.

Producers are John Lasseter, Bird, Lisa Beroud, David Ellison and Dana Goldberg.

Title: Ray Gunn
Festival: London Film Festival
Distributor: Netflix
Release date: December 4, 2026 (theatrical); December 18 (streaming)
Director: Brad Bird
Screenwriters: Brad Bird and Matthew Robbins
Cast: Sam Rockwell, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Waits, Bobby Cannavale, Alan Tudyk, Matt Berry, Michelle Rodriguez
Rating: PG
Running time: 1 hr 59 mins

The queasy feeling of seeing “SKYDANCE” in the opening credits of any film will likely hold for the time being — so too will the words “JOHN LASSETER” — but at least Brad Bird‘s long-gestating passion project “Ray Gunn” provides a smidge of hope that the new mega-studio will continue to foster, well, long-gestating passion projects from beloved filmmakers. Skydance Animation first signed Bird and his film back in 2021, allowing the “Iron Giant” and “Incredibles” filmmaker the chance to make a film he’s been thinking about for entire decades. (The film is being released by Netflix, which does continue to bet on unique animated endeavors.)

The result is a highly creative mish-mash of seemingly disparate genres and tones that mostly work well together — set in a retro-futurist city that looks like if “Blade Runner” was considerably less scuzzy, it’s a hard-boiled detective noir tale that also imagines a universe in which humans and aliens co-exist somewhat peacefully — despite ultimately feeling let down by muddled messaging. It’s bad timing for all involved that the film is finally arriving on the heels of the massive Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery merger, as “Ray Gunn” is also a virulent screed against the punishing power of entertainment conglomerates on the creative class. Oops.

Sound like a lot? It is, but the vibrant world that Bird has designed for his compelling characters and overstuffed story does plenty of heavy lifting here. The city of Metropia is immersive, bright, and tangible, the kind of cinematic setting you can imagine navigating, living in, having your own adventures in. It feels so real, in fact, that you won’t wonder too much about its literal place or time (per the film’s official logline, it is “a gigantic city in an alternate future as seen from 1939”). In the film’s press notes, Bird describes the film’s general aesthetic as “almost like taking Art Deco but putting it in a wind tunnel so all the curves were smooth,” and the whole joint looks like Miami got swallowed by the grandest old skyscrapers of mod New York City. There’s something new — and beautiful — everywhere you look, plus flying cars and jetpacks that appear to be obtained CitiBike-style.

Mostly told through the eyes of tough-talking private eye Raymond Gunn (voiced by Sam Rockwell; all of the film’s voice casting picks are on point), the film’s central mystery is a sprawling one, first kicking off with a late night break-in at the office of a lawyer on the immigration beat. The politics of the place are fuzzy, and will stay that way, because while the streets are crowded with aliens of all shapes, sizes, and species, being non-human is seemingly looked down upon. We do know that Ray himself is an outlier because his best friend and professional partner Eye-Ra (voiced by Tom Waits) is a cyclopsian alien. That’s not totally cool in Metropia.

What is cool in Metropia? The immensely popular multimedia artist Venus Nova (voiced by Scarlett Johansson), an omnipresent cultural force we first meet by way of her massive, hologramic ads that pepper the city and alluringly promise, “Welcome to the future.” That may be the name of her next album, but Venus’ insane popularity also speaks to the way Metropia is moving forward, constantly looking for the next shiny thing. As it applies more personally to Venus, the pressure to keep topping herself with each new project has taken a major toll. It doesn’t help that she’s yoked to Megamax, a massive corporation that owns and controls just about everything when it comes to Metropia’s culture and entertainment. (Hmm.)

Venus might be famous for her work, but she’s infamous for her behavior, mostly wild mood swings that only ramp up before she’s meant to release her next! big! thing! Her outrageous outburst have turned her into a major liability for image-obsessed Megamax (now run by her own ex-husband), as she’s the kind of pop star who likes to celebrate her album release by punching paparazzi in the face, wahoo. Too bad she’s also the conglomerate’s biggest star.

Eventually, Bird’s film — with a script co-written by Matthew Robbins — gets to the meat of the action when Venus’ extremely complicated life runs smack into Ray and his knack for sniffing out bad guys. That’s not to say that Ray’s own life is not a messy one, and the film mentions myriad subplots about how he turned private eye (a former cop, his moral code didn’t really jibe with his time on the force) or why he’s so sad (dead parents). Bird and Robbins build in plenty of misdirects (just wait until the first time we meet Venus) and tangents, many of which feel curiously underbaked. With so many years spent on this story, perhaps “Ray Gunn” should have gone the series route? That too would have likely appealed more to the film’s target audience, which is distinctly not kids.

As Ray goes down the rabbit hole, the shiny facade of Metropia and Megamax (which is, notably and obviously evil from the start) begin to crumble. It’s clear the corporate brass are manipulating Venus — that’s a given, and long before she bellies up for a full hologram rendering we already know is not being used as a “backup” — but the full nature and extent of their deception is held back until the film’s final moments (so too is the root of Venus’ wild behavior, even as the hints intensify). Eh, maybe don’t get into biz with your ex-husband. Maybe don’t get into biz with the media conglomerate that owns everything!

Such messaging sure feels weird in our post-Skydance world. While Bird’s film stays firmly on the side of its creative stars, it’s odd messaging to consume and consider in this day and age. Massive corporations who treat their greatest assets as grist for the mill are bad, you say? Organic invention is better? Over-engineered entertainment doesn’t have any heart? That’s old school messaging, the kind of stuff that was true when Bird first cooked up “Ray Gunn,” and that we can only hope still inspires creative output far into the future.

Grade: B-

Netflix will release “Ray Gunn” in select theaters on Friday, December 4. It will be available to stream on Friday, December 18.

Spanish directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi delved into the generational trauma behind award-winning film La Bola Negra at Deadline’s Contenders London.

The feature – revolving around the interconnected stories of three gay men in 1932, 1937 and 2017 – took its cue from Alberto Conejero’s 2013 play La piedra oscura, which in turn was inspired by García Lorca’s unfinished play La Bola Negra.

At the heart of the La piedra oscura is the love story between real-life football player Rafael Rodríguez Rapún and Lorca during the Spanish Civil War. The work is spun into another story in the film about a young trumpeter called Sebastián, played by singer-songwriter Guitarricadelafuente.

“When I read in the plane the first monologue, I started to cry… something touched deep inside, like a wound I didn’t know I had about like my country and what happened like 90 years ago,” he said.

He and Javier Ambrossi then investigated Lorca’s play and discovered it was unfinished.

“We realized it was the first play he was going to portray a gay character, so it was going to be revolutionary. But he was murdered. He couldn’t do it, and we were like, ‘What a loss!’”

The directorial duo went to Granada to consult the screenplay which is preserved at the Centro Federico Garcia Lorca.

“We got to see the four pages and there was like a power in those pages, like art as a physical thing, because the niece of Lorca said that fascism wanted to destroy all the manuscripts when the war started, but everyone hid it. So, it felt like a weapon that fascism wanted to destroy. We start from there, imagining what ‘La Bola Nera’ could have been, mixing it with ‘La pieda scura’, and then we had our present timeline.”

Ambrossi said the four pages had acted as a character blueprint for their film.

“The beautiful thing about the four pages that exist of the unfinished work by Federico Garcia Lorca is that the first page is a list of characters he was going use,” he said. “It was like a challenge, you know. I was like, oh my god, if we reimagine this world, it could be something very beautiful.”

Penélope Cruz, who has a small role as Nené Romero, a Cuplé singer entertaining soldiers during the Spanish Civil War, also joined the conversation.

Cruz said she was a big fan of the directors’ work – which includes The Messiah and Veneno – and instructed her to set up a lunch.

“Like after 10 minutes we were friends and then they told me they were writing this movie, and there was a character that they thought about sending, but they thought it was too short. And I told them never worry about that with me. Like I don’t choose the material based on how many minutes the character is on screen,” she recounted.

“A few days later they sent it, and I completely fell in love with the Nené, and I was blown away by this script. I thought I don’t know if they realize how incredible and powerful this is what they have in their hands.”