Scarlett Johansson’s next major animated project, Ray Gunn, is heading to the 2026 BFI London Film Festival ahead of its Netflix debut. The Brad Bird-directed film will receive its world premiere in London on October 10, giving audiences an early opportunity to see the long-awaited sci-fi noir before its worldwide streaming release on December 18.
The festival screening adds another milestone to a project that Bird has spent decades developing. The BFI has confirmed Ray Gunn as one of the festival’s world premieres, with the film running 119 minutes and featuring the voices of Sam Rockwell, Scarlett Johansson and Tom Waits.
Scarlett Johansson Voices the Film’s Mysterious Star
Johansson lends her voice to Venus Nova, a hugely famous multimedia star whose troubles become connected to Raymond Gunn’s investigation. Sam Rockwell voices the titular detective, a human private eye working in a futuristic society where much of detective work has been taken over by machines.
Johansson previously praised the opportunity to work with Bird in Netflix’s Tudum interview [Netflix Tudum], calling the collaboration “a career milestone for me.” She also described the movie as a project that represents where Bird is in his artistic journey and said its animation “looks like nothing else out there.”
Tom Waits rounds out the principal voice cast as Eyera, Ray’s trusted companion and a one-eyed alien.
Brad Bird Finally Brings His Decades-Old Idea to Screens
Ray Gunn is not a recent concept. Bird has reportedly been developing the project for more than 30 years, with the original idea predating The Iron Giant. The film eventually found a home through Netflix and Skydance Animation, allowing Bird to finally realize the ambitious animated noir.
Bird has described the movie’s creative formula as “The Maltese Falcon meets Buck Rogers,” explaining to Netflix Tudum that he wanted to combine classic 1940s detective stories with science fiction.
That mixture is reflected in Metropia, the film’s enormous alternate-future city. The setting imagines a 1939-inspired world filled with Art Deco architecture, advanced technology, flying cars, and humans living alongside extraterrestrial characters.
