Brad Bird screens Ray Gunn’s first 7 minutes at Hall H — Netflix Dec 18

Hall H got a noir cold open. Brad Bird screened the first seven minutes of Ray Gunn — his first animated feature since Incredibles 2 — to a packed Comic-Con room: Sam Rockwell as Raymond Gunn, the last human private eye in a machine-run megacity, with Scarlett Johansson and Tom Waits on the call sheet. Netflix date locked: December 18, 2026.

Why the footage matters

Pitch DNA: The Maltese Falcon meets Buck Rogers. Methodical detective craft with wild creatures, cheeky violence, and adult tone — not a kids’ Saturday. The project simmered for decades, bounced from Apple concerns into a Netflix / Skydance commitment north of $150M. Bird produced across Cinesite Montreal and Skydance Madrid with less remote pipeline than the post-pandemic default.

December 18 puts Ray Gunn against Avengers: Doomsday weekend energy on the culture calendar. Theatrical still unconfirmed; Bird wants a big screen. Hall H already voted with its lungs.