Brad Bird never pitched his grown-up cartoon to Pixar — now he's back writing Incredibles 3
Brad Bird spent 30 years on an animated film for grown-ups and never once pitched it to the studio that made him famous. Now it's out, critics can't agree on it, and he's back at Pixar
Brad Bird spent 30 years on an animated film for grown-ups and never once pitched it to the studio that made him famous. Now it's out, critics can't agree on it, and he's back at Pixar writing Incredibles 3.
Ray Gunn had its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on 10 October 2026, roughly three decades after Bird first had the idea. Sam Rockwell voices a broke private eye in Metropia, which looks like 1939 with jetpacks. Scarlett Johansson is Venus Nova, a pop star tangled up in her ex-husband's murder; Tom Waits is Ray's one-eyed alien partner. Michael Giacchino scored it, Skydance Animation made it, and Netflix streams it from 18 December after a limited cinema run from 4 December.
The day before the premiere, Bird told Variety why there's no Pixar lamp at the start:
"I never pitched it at Pixar because I felt like it wasn't in Pixar's wheelhouse exactly… If you put a Pixar label on it people would go, 'Oh well, it's meant for the same audience that these other films were meant for,' and inevitably some of them would go, 'Well, my little Jimmy would be unhappy at this.'"
— Brad Bird, to Variety
There are, by his count, "10 billion animated films" for children and far fewer for teenagers and adults. Making them "shouldn't be a controversial decision," he said, "and yet it was always treated that way by the ministers of resource allocation" at Pixar. It is the politest way anyone has ever called their old bosses bean counters.
Thirty years of not now
The idea arrived with a song. Bird heard The B-52s' "Planet Claire", decided it sounded like the Peter Gunn theme crossed with a 1950s monster film, and got his pun. Then everything else got in the way:
- The day job: Ratatouille and Incredibles 2 at Pixar, plus Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and Tomorrowland in live action.
- The rejections: the film fell through at other studios, Warner Bros. among them.
- The way in: Ghost Protocol was Skydance's second film and "everybody was happy with how it turned out", so Ray Gunn became his next pitch there. Skydance Animation is run by Pixar co-founder John Lasseter: going around Pixar led straight back to the man who built it.
Skydance boss David Ellison is a producer. Bird says he was more involved early on, before "his plate became very full". That plate was Warner Bros. Discovery: Ellison's $111 billion merger closed on 6 October, four days before the premiere, after seeing off a rival Netflix deal for Warner assets.
The film Warner Bros. passed on now has the owner of Warner Bros. as its producer, and Netflix as its home.
Whether Ellison keeps his promise of at least 30 cinema releases a year is, says Bird, "beyond my pay grade". Fair enough: he waited three decades for one.
Read more: Warner Bros. decided Batgirl wasn't worth releasing. The boss who binned it just made $606 million
A cartoon for grown-ups, rated PG
The cheeky bit: the film Bird kept away from little Jimmy is rated PG. Variety found it "short on laughs and heart", with the gumshoe antics "safely in the PG-rated zone". The Hollywood Reporter called it "a bland pastiche", "too simplistic for adults and too serious-minded for kids". Deadline went the other way: "smart, visually sumptuous and clever", and ripe for the Best Animated Feature race. TheWrap called it "worth the wait".
Reddit took the split as a selling point:
"After 30 years in development, I'd rather see Brad Bird take a massive creative risk with an original sci-fi noir than play it safe with another forgettable sequel."
— a commenter in r/movies' review thread
The thread's top comment, to be fair, was busy fuming at the idea that grown-up animation already exists and is called anime.
Back to Pixar
Bird's next job is, of course, a sequel. He is writing and producing Incredibles 3 at Pixar, with Elemental's Peter Sohn, a veteran of every animated Bird film, directing. It reaches cinemas on 16 June 2028.
Ray Gunn lands on Netflix on 18 December. The next one, the ministers of resource allocation will be relieved to hear, is very much for little Jimmy.
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