First looks at Brad Bird’s long-gestating Ray Gunn and the Charlie vs. the Chocolate Factory film featured in the Next on Netflix Animation showcase at Annecy International Animation Film Festival.
Bird took part in a conversation with Aardman co-founder Peter Lord, in which they discussed Ray Gunn, the science fiction mystery feature on which Bird first started working in the 1990s.
Netflix has set a December 18 release date for the film.
The Annecy audience was treated to the first seven minutes of the film, as well as a work-in-progress look at a later scene, and concept art. It follows Ray Gunn, the last human private detective, in a futuristic world inhabited by humans and aliens.
Sam Rockwell, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Waits, John Ratzenberger and Jamie Costa are among the voice cast.
“It’s got a lot more comedy and action than the average film noir,” said Bird, who revealed the character of a gun shop owner shown in one clip was voiced by his son’s basketball coach Buck. “He’s not an actor but he did very well,” said the Rataouille and The Incredibles director.
Bird also said he didn’t work on the project for many years, with it caught in turnaround when Warner Bros owned the rights but was not moving ahead with the film. “I negotiated to get it back, then I could go out and see if I could get financing for it,” said Bird. “We got it out. Freedom!”
“I’m glad we’re showing it on the big screen here [in Annecy], because we did a lot of detail,” said the director.
The showcase included a video message from Charlie vs. the Chocolate Factory directors Jared Stern and Elaine Bogan, who presented a first look at the film, which will start streaming on Netflix next year.
Inspired by Roald Dahl’s 1964 novel and set in the present day, Kit Connor will voice a new character named Charlie Paley, while Taika Waititi will voice chocolatier Willy Wonka. The film will be framed around a fresh story and characters, as well as some that featured in the novel, with original songs.
The work-in-progress trailer for the film was soundtracked to a cover of Blur’s ‘Song 2’, and saw the animated Charlie as a thief on the rooftops of London, as well as featuring a new version of the Oompa Loompas.
“This is the same Wonka, but an entirely different Charlie, and it takes place after the events that we all know so well,” said Hannah Minghella, head of Netflix Animation Studios, via video message. The film will be the first animated feature to have been fully produced through Netflix’s pipeline.
The streamer also showed a preview of the series Ghostbusters: Night Shift, produced in partnership with Sony Pictures Animation, which will launch on the platform next year. Showrunners and executive producers Ben Hibon and Elliott Kalan, and executive producers Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan presented a clip from the second episode of the show It is set in the 1990s, after the events of the two Ghostbusters films released in the 1980s, but before the two titles from the last five years.
“There’s an entire decade of ghostbusting which has never been told,” said Reitman.
The session also showed footage from The One Piece, an adaptation of Eiichiro Oda’s manga series about an aspiring pirate who sets sail in search of a mysterious treasure.
The Next on Netflix Animation showcase is a centrepiece of the streamer’s Annecy activity. Further events included a work-in-progress session for Alyce Tzue and John Ripa’s Steps, and an Anime Studio Focus detailing upcoming anime titles.
Ricky Gervais will take part in a masterclass session focusing on his adult animated comedy series Alley Cats, which launches on Netflix on August 7.
Japanese feature The Ribbon Hero, produced by Netflix, plays in the festival’s Annecy Presents strand this week, and there is an outdoor singalong screening of Oscar-winning hit KPop Demon Hunters.
Annecy runs until June 27.
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