EXCLUSIVE: Brad Bird’s Ray Gunn is almost here, and the director is weighing in on the chances of a follow-up.
After over 30 years of development, Bird’s neo-noir sci-fi film is right around the corner, with Sam Rockwell leading the star-studded ensemble as the titular private detective who becomes intertwined with a scandalous case involving multimedia star Venus Nova, voiced by Johansson. Also starring Tom Waits, Matt Berry, Bobby Cannavale, Michelle Rodriguez and Alan Tudyk, among others, Ray Gunn made its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival and instantly became a critical sensation.
Now, in an interview with ScreenRant‘s Tatiana Hullender on the AFI Fest red carpet, Brad Bird was asked about the chances of a Ray Gunn sequel or spinoff ahead of its December 18 premiere. The writer/director began by stating that “I don’t think about” future stories when developing his various projects, as he’d instead rather pour all of his efforts into “the movie we’re making” and never “assum[ing] that everybody’s going to want more“:
Brad Bird: They may have one and done, like a really good meal, they just go, “Yum, that was good! Now, moving on to another meal.”
Brad Bird: They may have one and done, like a really good meal, they just go, “Yum, that was good! Now, moving on to another meal.”
That being said, while the writer/director is largely reluctant about getting into talks of a follow-up to his Blade Runner-like film, Bird did tease that part of his creation process is “to imagine it thoroughly enough” that he or another filmmaker “could do other things” with the world and characters of Ray Gunn.
Ever since making his directorial debut with the widely-acclaimed sci-fi adventure The Iron Giant, Bird has notably largely avoided developing any sequels to his films. The only one thus far has been that of Pixar’s Incredibles 2, which he took over a decade to make in order to live up to the first film’s success, while having frequently shot down the potential of Iron Giant and Ratatouille sequels.
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Much to his point about wanting to develop well-rounded stories, many of the sources of inspiration that Bird pulled from for Ray Gunn have been ones originally designed as standalone stories. While The Maltese Falcon had other short stories with its central detective character, Sam Spade, and Chinatown would later get a sequel from its original writer and Jack Nicholson, they were both lesser-received in comparison to their originals.
Interestingly, though, two of Bird’s inspirations for Ray Gunn are ones that have fairly extended histories beyond their debuts that could see him pull from to further expand his Netflix movie. Will Eisner’s The Spirit, which he spent years developing an adaptation of and included elements of for his new detective character, is one of the longest-running comic characters with over 80 years of publications, while The Big Sleep, another Humphrey Bogart classic, centered on Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe, who led eight total novels.
Even when looking at the most direct genre parallel in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner adaptation, it’s clear that Ray Gunn could still get a follow-up at some point down the road. After decades of development, the neo-noir sci-fi franchise roared back to life with the Denis Villeneuve-helmed Blade Runner 2049, which found ways to both expand the wider world of the future and its original storyline, while both Black Lotus and Prime Video’s upcoming 2099 series have branched into completely new territory.
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Bird’s dedication to making Ray Gunn feel like a complete story can certainly be felt in its reviews, which have secured the film a 94% “Certified Fresh” approval rating from critics, who have praised the cast, animation and tone, while also notably being mixed on its 119-minue runtime. Even still, with a star-studded cast and Bird’s rave reputation from his Pixar tenure, particularly the Incredibles films, there’s a strong chance his new movie will become a breakout Netflix hit and spark discussions of franchise expansions.
Ray Gunn
Ray Gunn is a 2026 animated neo-noir science-fiction mystery directed by Brad Bird, set in Metropia, a retro-futuristic city where humans and aliens coexist. Private detective Raymond Gunn is drawn into a murder case involving aliens and famous multimedia star Venus Nova, pulling him into a larger mystery.
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