Brad Bird is a singular talent. His attention to detail as a director of animated films has come through in countless projects across his storied career, showing what feels like actual fingerprints on the work in an age where things are increasingly diluted, mass-produced, templated, and (especially today) inhuman.
We were fortunate enough to visit Netflix Animation and spend a day learning about Brad Bird’s process on his newest film, Ray Gunn.
While on the surface this title may look like things you’ve seen before, it has much more to offer. It combines noir and Art Deco with sci-fi. The title character’s name doesn’t even feel all that striking or original (like a ray gun… but a man’s name?). Beneath what seems familiar initially is the kind of compelling and unique Brad Bird work that drives you forward in a story.
Part of this is that Brad Bird’s talent is something he learned long ago from one of Walt Disney’s famous “Nine Old Men,” Milt Kahl. Kahl’s list of iconic characters for which he was the directing animator runs long, and it seems clear one thing he passed on to Bird is the ability to make a character truly come to life in this medium. Much as a great actor becomes a student of how behaviors reveal personality and intent, serving plot and subtext, so too does the very best animator.
What Bird accomplishes consistently isn’t just the obvious stuff; the look and feel of the worlds of The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, and now Ray Gunn certainly qualify as impressive in that department. He imbues animated characters with physicality that helps tell the story. He truly “directs them.”
One of the most interesting characters Bird has in Ray Gunn is the city itself, some kind of variation on Lucas’s Star Wars world of Coruscant. Bird’s city is teeming with design detail. It’s more than just a city with flying cars, because the Art Deco detail is found in every little nook and cranny; nothing is taken for granted. It gives the world a lived-in quality; even when a pawnshop owner discusses either helping repair an old blaster or trading it in for a new one, we get a sense of a world far beyond the edges of the frame.
What does an “older model” feel like? How would it malfunction? What would a person who uses an older one wear? These are all questions that you can hear Bird asking the animators and designers, questions you can hear echoing in the halls of Golden Age Disney, batted around by the Nine Old Men themselves.
Bird has a serious love of the movie theater experience. While the film will be released on Netflix on December 18, 2026, it’ll also be in select theaters, including limited 70mm engagements, on December 4, 2026. Bird no doubt recommends that all who can see it that way do.
For good reason. The experience of any cinematic work is better in large audiovisual formats, but to appreciate what filmmakers like Bird and his expansive team of artists are doing, you should give it your full attention in the big, dark room without any distractions.
Bird’s collaboration with composer Michael Giacchino was also on full display, with the two of them sharing an interview about their process, the origins of the project, and what makes it so fun for them to work together. Giacchino has become a modern movie-music kid in a candy store, seemingly collaborating with so many of this era’s most imaginative filmmakers on beloved IP, new and old.
The star-studded vocal talents employed on Ray Gunn aren’t there for name recognition alone. The “character” in each of these voices is utilized to help realize the world. From Scarlett Johansson’s iconic deeper tones to Tom Waits’s gravelly, hard-traveled near-whispers, the world comes alive in the way the characters themselves sound.
Watch the Ray Gunn Trailer
Watch the official Ray Gunn trailer on YouTube. Ray Gunn is streaming on Netflix December 18, 2026.
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