Netflix reveals first-look images of The Incredibles director's new movie Ray Gunn — and its starry cast and plot details have instantly caught my eye

• Netflix has released the first images for new animated film Ray Gunn
• The sci-fi detective movie is helmed by The Incredibles' award-winning director Brad Bird
• Scarlett Johansson has been unveiled as part of its A-list cast

Netflix has unveiled the first official images for Ray Gunn, a new animated movie from the award-winning director behind beloved Pixar flicks The Incredibles and Ratatouille.

Billed as a gumshoe sci-fi adventure, Ray Gunn is the first film from Oscar winner Brad Bird in eight years — the last big-screen offering he helmed was The Incredibles 2, which made its theatrical debut in mid-2018.

Ahead of Bird's latest movie premiering exclusively on the world's best streaming service later this year, Netflix has released some world-first images from the forthcoming flick, and the first details about its plot and A-list voice cast. Let's start with those aforementioned images, which you can see in the gallery below:

Image 1 of 3

Story-wise, Ray Gunn is set in 1939, in an alternate-universe city called Metropia. Per Netflix, it'll see "private eye Raymond Gunn [get] drawn into a case involving aliens, murder, and a multimedia star named Venus Nova".

"Ray Gunn has been in my mind for over 30 years," Bird said in a statement accompanying the announcement of one of this year's new movies. "The film is a blend of sci-fi and classic detective movies from the '40s — it's Maltese Falcon meets Buck Rogers. I've been a fan of both of those sort of genres, and blending them together seemed fun, and a chance to play with a lot of very cinematic elements and extreme characters.

"There’s a big chunk of people who don’t watch animation. That’s a group I’m anxious to persuade [to watch this], because it’s an amazing art form that is way too limited in people’s minds. Animation as a medium is too interesting to limit what kind of stories can be told."

Who is part of Ray Gunn's cast?

Alongside all of the aforementioned reveals, Netflix has also confirmed the first three actors who'll lend their vocal talents to some of Ray Gunn's main characters.

For starters, Marvel alumnus Scarlett Johansson is on board as the voice of Nova, one of Metropia's megastars and likely the movie's femme fatale-like character.

"Having the opportunity to collaborate with Brad Bird is a career milestone for me," Johansson said. "I have loved his work my entire life. This project is so uniquely special, because it is a total realization of where Brad is currently on his artistic journey. I can’t wait for audiences to see this extraordinary animation that looks like nothing else out there."

Joining the Jurassic World: Rebirth and Lost in Translation actor on the roster are Sam Rockwell (Iron Man 2, The Bad Guys) and Tom Waits (Seven Psychopaths, Licorice Pizza). Neither star's role has been confirmed yet, but I suspect Rockwell will voice the titular character, with Waits likely portraying his alien detective partner.

As I mentioned earlier, Ray Gunn will drop on Netflix sometime later this year. It isn't the only animated offering from the streaming giant that's been in the news recently, either. Last Thursday (April 2), Netflix released the first trailer for Oscar-winner Michael B. Jordan's new movie Swapped, with the family-friendly flick set to arrive on May 1.

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