Brad Bird and Michael Giacchino have been creative collaborators since The Incredibles, and their teamwork has continued in many films, including Ratatouille and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. Now, the two are back together again with Netflix’s Ray Gunn, a project that has been years in the making.
Giacchino still remembers the chair he was sitting in when he first read Bird’s script back in 2009.
Netflix released the official trailer and teaser art, which you can check out below.
“Oh, it’s always the best,” Giacchino replied when I asked about getting to work with Bird again during an early press-day roundtable. “The highlight of my years is when I can see on my schedule that there’s going to be a Brad Bird movie coming up. In this movie, I read this script, like in 2009, I think the first time? I still remember the chair I read it in. I remember just thinking, like, ‘Oh my God, it’s going to be great!”
“I would say the same thing with Michael,” Bird added. “The most fun part of the process to me is bringing the film, which feels relatively complete at that point. And then the very scary process of ripping out this music that is sort of Band-Aids on Band-Aids, and it’s fairly firm at that point. It’s like eight inches of Band-Aids, and you feel like, ‘Well, that’s secure,’ and then you throw it away.
“And Michael makes it beautiful, consistent. And just sitting there and watching that process happen is the highlight of every film that I’ve worked with him on because he’s great. He dials right into the movie that we all want to make, and as soon as I hear it with the film, I’m like, ‘That’s the way it had to be. It’s absolutely what I want.'”
The composer and the director have worked together on several projects since The Incredibles, but their first collaboration came with a bit of uncertainty for Giacchino.
“I had been waiting for weeks to see if I was getting that job on The Incredibles,” Giacchino recalled. “It was my first movie and understandably, I just really wanted to do that movie so bad, but also felt like they’re never going to hire me because they work with Thomas Newman and Randy Newman.
“And these guys would never do this, but for whatever reason they did. [Bird] got on the phone with me to tell me I got the job, and literally the first thing he says out of the gate is, ‘Now listen. Your music could ruin my movie.’ I remember I was on the phone thinking, ‘Oh wait. What? No, I’m going to work really hard.’
“‘No, I know you’re going to work, I know, but listen to me,’ he said. ‘If you and I are not on the same page every step of the way, the audience is going to start thinking things we don’t want them to think. They’re going to start feeling things we don’t want them to feel. So, it is so important that you and I are like clasping hands the entire process to make sure that this story is right. We’re both telling the same story.’
“It was a great thing to say at the time. You know, I mean, maybe you could have said a little nicer?” Giacchino joked.
About Ray Gunn
Logline: In Metropia, a gigantic city in an alternate future as seen from 1939, private eye Raymond Gunn is drawn into a case involving aliens, murder, and a multimedia star named Venus Nova.
The film is directed by Brad Bird and written by Bird and Matthew Robbins from an original story by Bird.
The voice cast includes Sam Rockwell, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Waits, Alan Tudyk, Matt Berry, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Chernus, Kether Donohue, Michelle Rodriguez, Aasif Mandvi, Matt Jones, Kathryn Hunter, John Ratzenberger, Justin Peck, Patton Oswalt.
Ray Gunn will be released in select theaters, including limited 70mm screenings, on December 4, 2026. It will debut on Netflix on December 18, 2026.
