Academy Award-winning director of Ratatouille, Brad Bird, is set to direct and produce an original animated film for Skydance Animation. Bird is also best known for helming The Incredibles and its sequel for Pixar, and The Iron Giant for Warner Bros. Animation. Skydance Animation is a new addition to Skydance studios and has yet to release a film, although it has several in the pipeline, as does Bird, including an original musical.
Now, The Wrap reports that Bird is developing a new animated sci-fi/noir film for Skydance based off of a script he co-wrote with Matthew Robbins. The new film is titled Ray Gunn, and according to Bird, promises to blend two popular types of fiction from the 1930s - hardboiled detective pulp novels and the "squeaky-clean" sci-fi of Buck Rogers comics. Not much else is known about the plot currently, other than it's set in the fictional city of Metropia. Although Skydance Animation president Holly Edwards had this to say on the project:
“We’re thrilled to partner with Brad to finally bring his vision of Ray Gunn to the screen. From its immersive world to its rich characters, we can’t wait to explore this story and to create a one-of-a-kind animated experience for audiences around the world.”
Bird is coming off the success of Incredibles 2, the highest grossing animated film of all time, and is splitting from Pixar for the first time since 2000 to partner with Skydance on the project. His writing partner, Robbins, is perhaps best known for writing several of Guillermo Del Toro's less fantasy-centric films, Mimic and Crimson Peak. The script for Ray Gunn has been percolating since Bird's time at WB Animation in the '90s, so it's unclear how much of it has changed since then. If nothing else, it will likely bring more of the Ratatouille director's signature inventive, highly kinetic action sequences to the screen. An official release date for Ray Gunn has yet to be given.
Source: The Wrap