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The world premiere of Netflix’s animated feature “Ray Gunn” at the London Film Festival on Saturday coincided with a special day for one of its key creatives.
As director Brad Bird noted in the introduction at the Royal
Festival Hall, the premiere for the neo-noir sci-fi was also composer Michael Giacchino’s birthday. Bird then invited the film’s voice stars Scarlett Johansson and Sam Rockwell to sing a rather sped up and succinct version of “Happy Birthday” to the musician, who took a selfie of them all to mark the occasion.
Speaking afterwards, Johansson said her primary attraction for joining “Ray Gunn” was Bird himself.
“I really was so excited to work with Brad, I’m such a massive fan of his,” she said. “It was a dream of mine to collaborate with him on anything — I just wanted to work with him so badly.”
Johansson voices Venus Nova, a famous pop star and love interest to Rockwell’s Raymond “Ray” Gunn, a small-time private detective.
”And, of course, [Bird] had written all his characters as very complex,” she added. “I’ve worked with directors that direct animated movies, but it was such a different experience working with Brad on this because he’s coming at it from also this other artistic perspective.”
Asked about the inspiration for the film, Bird said that it came “idiotically after misunderstanding a song,” the B-52’s sci-fi inspired 1979 track “Planet Claire.”
”When it started I thought it was a new version of Henry Mancini’s ‘Theme From Peter Gunn,” he said. “But then I was like oh, no, what is this? It’s Ray Gunn! And then I went, that’s cool and it went from there. So it was inspired by music.”
Following its world premiere at the London Film Festival, which runs until Oct. 18, Ray Gunn will play at select theaters on Dec. 4 before releasing on Netflix on Dec 18.
