Author: Jeff Spry

Pixar's Academy Award-winning director Brad Bird — of "The Incredibles" and "Ratatouille" fame — has been out of the spotlight for a while, working on a project that's been percolating inside his noggin for three decades. That project is "Ray Gunn", and it's finally on the horizon.

The first dynamic trailer for "Ray Gunn" arrived in September, giving us a glimpse of this cool sci-fi crime thriller. Like his previous works, it's an animated movie energized with spectacular visuals and starring the vocal talents of Sam Rockwell, Alan Tudyk, Scarlett Johansson, and Tom Waits.

If you're into retro-futuristic elements like flying cars, jet packs, blazing laser pistols, scary robots, alien hoodlums, and a classic whodunnit storyline, then this will be right up your alley.

Produced by Skydance Animation and directed by Brad Bird, "Ray Gunn" has a long history of development dating back even before Bird's glory days at Pixar. From this sneak peek, it's clear that a lot of love and attention to detail have been poured into this highly anticipated project, which arrives exclusively on Netflix on Dec. 18, 2026.

But what exactly is "Ray Gunn", and why did it take so long to get made?

What is Ray Gunn about?

The adult-oriented plot revolves around a hard-boiled private eye in Metropia named Raymond "Ray" Gunn (Rockwell), his one-eyed alien partner Eyera (Waits) and Venus Nova (Johansson), a sassy pop music starlet who's embroiled in a scandal that might cancel her career and possibly end her life.

"Ray Gunn's" murder mystery screenplay was co-written by Bird and Matthew Robbins, who he penned the script for 1987’s "Batteries Not Included" with.

"The elevator pitch that I boiled it down to is 'Buck Rogers' meets 'The Maltese Falcon,'" Bird told Discussing Film regarding the movie’s influences. "You take the slightly more naïve, optimistic design view of the future, and then you add a dark underbelly to it.

"Usually in these stories, the city is kind of a grimy place. In 'Blade Runner,' it's acid rain and this future you don’t want to be in. But I thought there was something fun about juxtaposing a positive vision of the city of the future, and then showing that still there's going to be corruption and lies."

Ray Gunn has a star-studded line-up of vocal talents too, including Sam Rockwell, Alan Tudyk, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Waits, Matt Berry, Bobby Cannavale, Michale Chernus and Patton Oswalt.

Ray Gunn's long journey to our screens

What’s so cool about this neo-noir passion project is that it reunites Bird with former Pixar Chief John Lasseter ("Toy Story"), with whom the duo delivered some of the storied animation studio's biggest hits. Lasseter left Pixar in 2018 to head up the animation division at Skydance the next year.

The idea for "Ray Gunn" has been bouncing around Hollywood since the late '80s when Bird was with Amblin Entertainment. Its plot was inspired by Blake Edwards' "Peter Gunn" movie, Will Eisner's The Spirit and The B-52’s tune "Planet Claire," but set in an alt-future with humans and aliens.

After a successful run working on the first eight seasons of "The Simpsons," "Ray Gunn" was set up at Turner Feature Animation in the mid-90s but was eventually shelved before Turner merged with Warner Bros., where Bird directed 1999's "The Iron Giant."

Even while working on other live-action endeavors like helming 2011's "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol" and 2015’s "Tomorrowland," or spending time on Pixar's "Incredibles 3," Bird held onto hope that "Ray Gunn" might be revived after years of development hell.

Fortunately, he moved on from "Incredibles 3" in 2021 to join Lasseter at Skydance Animation, and the rest is history after setting the movie up at Netflix instead of his old home at Pixar.

Watching this new trailer, it’s hard not to compare its design aesthetics and overall plot devices to movies like "Blade Runner," "The Fifth Element," and maybe a touch of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"

"Ray Gunn" debuts on Netflix on Dec. 18, 2026, and will also have a limited 70mm theatrical release starting Dec. 4, 2026.

We all love Steven Spielberg and his innumerable contributions to the art of cinema over the decades. His latest entry into the genre, "Disclosure Day", wasn't quite as warmly received by audiences, but it's nevertheless an entertaining sci-fi flick that's worth checking out. And good news on that front, because "Disclosure Day" will be streaming on Peacock from Oct. 9, 2026.

Produced by Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment for a cost of roughly $200 million (including marketing), "Disclosure Day" first touched down in cinemas on June 12, 2026. It had some of that old Spielberg magic, but ultimately felt a decade late to the UAP party; a story linked to another era where folks got all their news from local television stations.

Critics were tepid toward the alien conspiracy movie, with our own "Disclosure Day" review calling it a "close encounter with Spielberg's brilliance that doesn't quite make contact". Despite it not living up to the highs of "Close Encounters" or "E.T.", it's still a compelling thriller.

Word of mouth wasn't exactly overly enthusiastic either, and it ended its theatrical run collecting $241 million worldwide. By Hollywood's math, a movie needs to return 2.5 times its initial budget to break even, which means that "Disclosure Day" wasn't really the lucrative summer firecracker that the studio had hoped for.

"Disclosure Day" stars Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson and Colman Domingo in an often engaging but sometimes confusing cover-up plot about a Kansas City meteorologist and a tech whistleblower chased by a sinister group trying to sequester evidence that alien beings have been living amongst us on Earth.

Directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by longtime collaborator David Koepp ("Jurassic Park," "The Lost World: Jurassic Park"), "Disclosure Day" will begin streaming exclusively on Peacock starting Oct. 9, 2026.

40 years ago on Sept. 12, 1986, musical icon Michael Jackson debuted in "Captain EO," a 17-minute long 3D sci-fi fantasy film. The catch? You could only see it at Walt Disney World's EPCOT Center in Florida, or — six days later — at Disneyland’s Magic Eye Theater over in Tomorrowland.

Jackson had already been anointed the King of Pop in the ‘80s with the stellar multi-platinum album "Thriller" when the creative cosmic tumblers aligned, joining the immense talents of Jackson, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola and the wizards of Disney's Imagineering to create one of the most unique sci-fi entertainment offerings ever conceived.

With impressive special effects, catchy songs, dynamic dance numbers and co-starring Academy Award-winning actress Anjelica Huston as the witch queen known as the Supreme Leader, "Captain EO" was a huge attraction seen by millions of Disney guests.

It told the story of a rag-tag crew of space misfits led by Jackson's charismatic Captain EO (in a sweet white leather uniform) on a mission to a sinister industrial planet to deliver a mysterious gift to its despotic ruler. Plenty of hijinks ensue with EO's oddball companions: Major Domo, Hooter, Idy & Ody, and a winged kitten creature named Fuzzball.

After crash landing on the dark world directly onto the homing beacon, EO and his crazy crew are apprehended by a gang of warrior henchmen and hauled into the throne room to face the wicked alien ruler who is imprisoned in anger and hate.

Huston is electrifying in her Giger-esque makeup, supported by a tangle of banded black cables and sporting long fingernails that were deliciously thrust into audiences’ eyes using the magic of 3D and the special red-and-blue-lensed glasses handed out when arriving for each screening.

When EO's crew manifests into a musical band to offer a song to the Supreme Leader, Hooter trips over the power cord to ruin the performance. The commotion tries the queen’s patience and she dispatches her cruel Whip Warriors to capture EO and send him to her deepest, darkest dungeon.

But EO fights back with an illuminating t-shirt (hey, it was the '80s!), some fancy dance moves and a surge of musical energy to unlock her beauty. This transforms Huston into a colorful enchantress with her grim lair now becoming a lush Greek-like temple. Darkness turns to light and everyone leaves as peaceful galactic friends.

It's an honest plot with heart and humor filled with cool tunes and a sprinkling of in-your-face 3D moments for the whole family, and really, what else would you expect from a Jackson/Disney collaboration in the decade of excess?

The two prominent songs — the original "We Are Here to the Change the World," and "Another Part of Me" — are used to great effect throughout the simple narrative. I can fondly remember leaving the Magic Eye Theater the first time I saw it in the 1990s with an uplifted attitude and the renewed vigor needed to brave the epic summertime Disneyland crowds. Over the years I’d revisited the film a dozen times and it's remained a fun time capsule of unbridled spirit perfect for its age and even more relevant today.

Production began on "Captain EO" in the summer of 1985 with "Star Wars"' creator George Lucas serving as producer and legendary Francis Ford Coppola of The Godfather fame in the director's chair. James Horner, who’d later go on to compose the music for "Titanic," was enlisted to pen the original score. Essentially an expanded music video similar in format to 1983’s horror short, "Thriller," "Captain EO" was filmed entirely in Los Angeles with Lucas's ILM unit called in for a VFX polish.

Costing nearly $30 million to produce, "Captain EO" was, at the time, the most expensive short ever filmed on a per-minute basis. It was also a pioneering attraction that used in-theater 4D techniques that delivered floodlights, fog, smoke, starfields, meteors and LED laser effects out into the audience in conjunction with the added visual component of its 70MM 3D filming process.

"For all those who share Walt Disney's dream and delight in the promise of the future, we cut this ribbon signifying the opening of the 3-D musical motion picture space adventure, 'Captain EO!,'" proclaimed Coppola at its 1986 Disneyland premiere.

The attraction ran continuously at Disney World’s EPCOT Center until 1994 and lasted three years longer at Disneyland's Magic Kingdom before it was closed in 1997.

Upon Jackson’s untimely death in 2009 it returned for an encore tribute run between 2010 and 2015, including re-releases at Tokyo Disneyland and Disneyland Paris before vanishing completely to be locked up forever in the Disney Vault. It was also broadcast once though on MTV for a 1995 Michael Jackson tribute.

While an official Disney streaming option is nowhere to be found, there are YouTube channels that have uploaded enhanced and/or upscaled copies of "Captain EO" if you've got a hankering for some heart-warming sci-fi.

With so many dire warnings, dystopian fare and AI doomsdays prophesied everywhere you turn, maybe we all need a little bit of Captain EO's hopeful “The planets are linin' up, we're bringin' brighter days” message.

Unless you’ve been living in a galaxy far, far away, you probably already know that 2027 marks the 50th anniversary of "Star Wars", as George Lucas’s sprawling space opera first struck theaters back on May 25, 1977.

To celebrate this milestone occasion, Disney and Lucasfilm are bringing the original Star Wars theatrical release to IMAX screens for the first time.

Depending on the IMAX setups available, audiences can see the legendary space opera at official IMAX locations in either digital or physical film for its triumphant re-release on Feb. 19, 2027.

This newly restored "Star Wars" print — apparently being shown without its “A New Hope” subtitle, Special Edition clutter, or CGI enhancements — will also screen at a limited number of IMAX 70mm sites.

You know what that means, right? Han will once again fire his blaster at Greedo first!

"Star Wars: Starfighter" — the upcoming Star Wars movie starring Ryan Gosling — will also be getting an IMAX release around the same time, as it launches on May 28, 2027.

As a stellar follow-up, "Star Wars: Starfighter" will blast off over the 50th anniversary weekend on May 28, 2027. It’s a standalone sci-fi adventure from director and producer Shawn Levy ("Real Steel," "Deadpool & Wolverine," "Stranger Things") headlined by Ryan Gosling ("Drive," "Blade Runner 2049," "Project Hail Mary").

Here, the omnipresent superstar portrays Kade Auberon, a cynical rogue confronted by his mysterious past. The eclectic cast also includes Matt Smith, Mia Goth, Aaron Pierre, Jamael Westman, Daniel Ings, Flynn Gray, and Amy Adams.

"Star Wars: Starfighter" was filmed for IMAX and shot with certified IMAX-approved digital cameras framed for IMAX screen ratios before being converted to IMAX 70mm film prints for screening in an exclusive number of IMAX venues in the U.S.

IMAX spots for "Star Wars" and "Star Wars: Starfighter" can be found online HERE.

The "Star Wars" IMAX re-release is coming Feb. 19, 2027. "Star Wars: Starfighter" hits theaters on May 28, 2027.

Unless you’re a naked mole rat or a worm-lizard, you were never meant to live your life out underground like the poor doomsday denizens of Apple TV's "Silo."

Season 3 has revealed how a trillionaire industrialist named Per Stenson (Colin Hanks) funded the insane project to build 50 subterranean bunkers in Georgia, housing 10,000 people each, as a bold failsafe effort against humanity’s inevitable extinction in the face of global nanotech warfare.

Hollywood has mined the sci-fi subgenre of underground exploratory movies for decades, and it’s amusing to see how real science has been either faithfully depicted or completely ignored over the years.

Regardless of geological accuracy, venturing into unnatural environments unfit for sun-seeking individuals makes for fantastic drama, from titles like "Journey to the Center of the Earth" and "The Core" to "The Mole People" and "City of Ember."

Let’s burrow into this list of subterranean sci-fi flicks to see which ones rise to the top!

10. "The Mole People"

Release date: December 1, 1956 | Director: Virgil W. Vogel

We sure love a campy black-and-white creature feature, and this 1950s favorite ticks all the boxes.

Descend thousands of feet into the center of the Earth and meet this unknown Egyptian-like empire of darkness where vicious mole monsters exist in subterranean lairs. Archaeologists and scientists join a globe-trotting expedition to find a tunnel leading to this lost civilization of pale-skinned Sumerians who enslave these hideous mole mutants to harvest their mushroom crops.

Human sacrifices, a corny romance, and truly frightening makeup effects make this cult B-movie well worth a watch. And who knew a flashlight could become such a potent weapon!

9. "10 Cloverfield Lane"

Release date: March 11, 2016 | Director: Dan Trachtenberg

John Goodman (Howard) stars in this slightly deranged sequel to 2008’s "Cloverfield" that’s considered part of the whole interconnected Cloverfield Universe that also includes the 2018 space-based thriller, "The Cloverfield Paradox."

Most of the film takes place in an underground survival bunker after a girl named Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is rescued from a car crash by Howard and taken inside the shelter where Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.), the bunker’s designer, also exists.

Howard and Emmett try to convince Michelle that the outside world has been poisoned by an alien invasion, but she’s not buying it. With threats above ground trying to get inside, intense paranoia and jealousy growing within, this smart little gem becomes an interesting successor to producer J.J. Abrams and director Matt Reeves’ "Cloverfield" that delivers the big scares.

8. "The Core"

Release date: March 28, 2003 | Director: Jon Amiel

Toss most scientific logic out the window and just strap in for a super silly but entertaining romp into the bowels of the Earth.

Loosely based on Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth" and packing an ensemble cast that includes Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, Delroy Lindo, Stanley Tucci, Bruce Greenwood, Alfre Woodard, and Richard Jenkins, "The Core" is no cerebral affair, to be certain, but it packs ambitious set pieces and great visual effects... for the time.

The Earth’s inner core has stopped spinning, and a group of scientists must go down deep inside a special drilling vessel and restart the core with atom bombs before the world tears itself apart from magnetic anomalies.

All ends well, making this kooky B-movie a guilty pleasure.

7. "Journey to the Center of the Earth"

Release date: July 11, 2008 | Director: Eric Brevig

"We’re still falling!" This 3D remake of the 1959 classic stars Brendan Fraser as an acclaimed scientist on the hunt for a missing brother, accompanied by his young nephew (Josh Hutcherson) and a mountaineer (Anita Briem).

The VFX are updated from the '50s version, but it lacks the earnestness and charm that the original adaptation carries. Perhaps we're all just too jaded and have lost our sense of wonder in these complex modern times. This 2008 project definitely elicits more of a YA-type entertainment but sticks pretty close to the source material, with special effects that have no right to look this good after 18 years.

CGI has definitely taken a turn for the worse in the last decade, and this beautiful film helps prove that point. It's packed with rampaging dinosaurs, glowing lava, rickety raft rides, Avatar-like flora, and toothy sea monsters.

Don’t think too hard, and let the sci-fi fantasy adventure unfold.

6. "At The Earth's Core"

Release date: July 15, 1976 | Director: Kevin Connor

England's Amicus Productions takes a stab at the classic 1914 book from fantasy master Edgar Rice Burroughs, which postulates the existence of a hollow Earth containing an entire prehistoric civilization.

This cult movie is pure Saturday afternoon popcorn entertainment, with Peter Cushing as a Victorian scientist who’s invented a behemoth drill and his strapping American partner, played by Doug McClure, as they plunge 4,000 miles into the planet's interior on an exploratory mission.

It’s stuffed with silly rubber-suited monsters and light-hearted dialogue that make you completely overlook the campy winged beasts nourished by the blood of sacrificial maidens!

5. "The Descent"

Release date: July 8, 2005 | Director: Neil Marshall

Spelunking, or cave exploring, is an unnerving hobby for anyone with even a mild case of claustrophobia, so if you have a fear of tight spaces — especially those inhabited by marauding cannibal humanoids — then this might be one to avoid.

Marshall’s movie takes place in a network of unexplored caverns where six adventurous women encounter a race of flesh-eating feral beings. Discovered in an unmapped region of North Carolina’s Appalachian Mountains, these nimble creatures have existed down in the Earth's depths for thousands of years.

It's a bloody good horror romp with excellent Crawler effects but can be disturbing for those of a more delicate constitution. It did make enough box office bucks to spawn a solid 2009 sequel!

4. "First Men in the Moon"

Release date: August 6, 1964 | Director: Nathan Juran

Five years before the Apollo 11 mission that sent Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon in July of 1969, came "First Men in the Moon", which took its cast deep beneath the lunar surface. This rousing sci-fi flick is adapted from the 1901 novel of the same name by H.G. Wells.

The storyline tracks an international moon expedition that discovers evidence of a secret British mission some six decades earlier. It also showcases legendary stop-motion pioneer Ray Harryhausen’s Dynamation techniques in depicting the underground dwelling insectoid Selenite beings and caterpillar-ish Moon Cattle.

The movie's dual timelines, flashing back from the present to that 19th-century mission, provide an interesting framing device hinting at the notion that the Selenites were doomed by a common cold à la Wells's "The War of the Worlds."

3. "City of Ember"

Release date: October 10, 2008 | Director: Gil Kenan

Just like the post-apocalyptic bunkers in "Silo," this movie also deals with a massive underground city meant to serve as humanity's last hope for 200 years in case of a nuclear war or other extinction-level calamities.

The plot follows two teens named Lina (Saoirse Ronan) and Doon (Harry Treadaway) who discover clues to an escape route left behind by the original architects of the vast subterranean shelter. It's based on the 2003 sci-fi novel, "The City of Ember," by American author Jeanne DuPrau and offers some impressive production design and engaging characters.

There are a lot of coincidental similarities here shared with "Silo," including a seriously shady Mayor (Bill Murray) hiding the truth from survivors, droning machinery, food and supplies running low, causing civil unrest, and even an appearance by Tim Robbins, who plays the duplicitous Bernard Holland in Apple TV’s hit dystopian series.

2. "Hidden"

Release date: September 15, 2015 | Director: The Duffer Brothers

Hidden is a highly underrated gem that has sadly been forgotten by audiences over the last decade.

Written and directed by The Duffer Brothers, who brought us five incredible seasons of Netflix’s sci-fi horror series Stranger Things, "Hidden" tells the story of a family who stumbles across a fallout shelter after military bombing drives them underground. Following on from some sort of viral outbreak, humanoid creatures now try to hunt them down as they fight for survival.

This was The Duffers’ first feature film and stars Alexander Skarsgård, Andrea Riseborough, and Emily Alyn Lind in a low-budget thriller released by Warner Bros.

"Hidden" was barely noticed on release, and we think that's a real shame. It’s got A Quiet Place vibes, and we totally recommend searching for it on major streaming platforms.

1. "Journey To The Center of the Earth"

Release date: December 16, 1959 | Director: Henry Levin

Here's an earnest attempt to adapt one of the true classics of science fiction literature, Jules Verne's "Journey to the Center of the Earth," which was first published back in 1864.

This lavish production begins at the mouth of an Icelandic volcano where a rift in the Earth has provided a possible passageway into the planet’s interior. Along for the ambitious trek are a famed geologist (James Mason), his loyal assistant (Pat Boone), a widow (Arlene Dahl), and a burly Icelander (Peter Rowan) as they discover hidden marvels while trying to evade a rival scientist (Thayer David).

It’s a breathtaking movie filmed in vivid De Luxe color to highlight all the wondrous inner-Earth rock formations, sparkling quartz grottoes, luminous inner oceans, and the fabled Lost City of Atlantis.