Brad Bird's Ray Gunn Opens December 4, Hits Netflix December 18

Brad Bird's animated sci-fi noir Ray Gunn will open in select theaters on December 4, including limited 70mm screenings, before arriving on Netflix on December 18. The film was presented at the Ottawa International Animation Festival on Saturday, where the opening seven minutes of the finished film were shown alongside work-in-progress material.

Set in Metropia, a giant city imagined as the future might have looked from 1939, the film stars Sam Rockwell as private detective Raymond Gunn and Scarlett Johansson as celebrity Venus Nova. Bird has spent about three decades trying to get the project made.

Ray Gunn was animated at Skydance Animation and Cinesite. The production was completed in roughly 18 months and contains around 1,800 shots across 35 sequences. Eight sequences take place outside, and about half of those are chases, including a roughly 65-second vertical chase made up of 35 shots.

For its visual approach, the team cited Chinatown as a major touchstone for the film's lens package and studied the work of cinematographer Conrad Hall. The presentation was reported by cartoonbrew.com.