Netflix unveils first look at Scarlett Johansson in Brad Bird's Ray Gunn

Netflix has set a December 18 global release date for Ray Gunn and shared two first-look images that put Scarlett Johansson's pop-star character front and center. The reveal came during the streamer's Next on Netflix showcase at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.

Brad Bird first wrote Ray Gunn in the 1990s for Turner Feature Animation, but the project collapsed after Turner's 1996 merger with Time Warner and sat dormant for years. Skydance Animation revived the film in 2022; Apple reportedly walked away from its Skydance deal in part over the film's roughly $150 million budget before Netflix stepped in to fund it.

Directed by Bird, Ray Gunn is an animated noir set in Metropia, a towering Art Deco metropolis imagined as the future might have looked in 1939. Sam Rockwell voices the small-time private eye, Johansson plays Venus Nova, a famous singer whose scandals threaten her career and her life, and Tom Waits voices Eyera, a one-eyed alien who serves as Gunn's closest ally.

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