Anthony and Joe Russo, the Russo Brothers, have directed some of the biggest movies of all time, with their film Avengers: Endgame coming in second place just behind James Cameron’s Avatar… but that hasn’t made it any easier to get their sci-fi adventure film The Electric State out into the world. The project was first announced back in 2017 and experienced multiple ups, downs, and behind-the-scenes shake-ups on its way to production, with filming beginning in 2022 and wrapping in early 2023. Reshoots followed in 2024. Now it looks like The Electric State might finally be ready to make its way out into the world, so we figure it was time to put together a list of Everything We Know About The Electric State:
SOURCE MATERIAL
The story of this film begins in July of 2017, when Free League launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for a new narrative artbook from acclaimed artist Simon Stålenhag – a book called The Electric State. Through a Facebook post, this book caught the attention of screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, who have worked with the Russo brothers on Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, and The Gray Man. McFeely is continuing the collaboration on the upcoming films Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. And they weren’t the only ones who became interested in it. At least four studios and numerous producers and directors were pursuing the adaptation rights, kicking off “a heated bidding war” that the Russo brothers ended up winning. In December of 2017, it was announced that Russos would be producing a film adaptation of The Electric State, with the script being written by Markus and McFeely.
Stålenhag’s book had the following description: In late 1997, a runaway teenager and her yellow toy robot travel west through a strange USA, where the ruins of gigantic battle drones litter the countryside heaped together with the discarded trash of a high tech consumerist society in decline. As their car approaches the edge of the continent, the world outside the window seems to be unraveling ever faster as if somewhere beyond the horizon, the hollow core of civilization has finally caved in. The film has kept that alternative 1990s setting.
Angela Russo-Otstot, the Creative Chief for the Russo brothers’ production company AGBO (and she also happens to be their sister), told The Hollywood Reporter that the film is “a really interesting exploration of a world where service robots live alongside humans. Within their time performing specific services for humans, the robots start to realize that they may want something more than the purpose they [were made] for, and the humans begin to fear this. So, eventually, a conflict plays out. There’s a war between the humans and the robots, and the humans leverage technology to win, and they take all of the robots and banish them into an exclusion zone in the middle of a desert wasteland in the center of the U.S. But it’s a global conflict as well. So there are other stories and narratives that can play out in different countries around the world, but we witness the U.S. story in this film.” The writers are said to have “built out a really rich mythology. There was an existing mythology in the book, but they expanded upon it.“
Russo-Otstot also mentioned that the robots “have a real nostalgia to them.”
DIRECTORS
When the Russos first secured the rights to Stålenhag’s book, they were too busy working on Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame to direct the film themselves, so they tapped Andy Muschietti, who had just had massive success with his first It movie, to take the helm. But Muschietti had to make It: Chapter Two first… and by the time he was finished with that Stephen King adaptation, he had been offered the chance to direct The Flash for Warner Bros. and DC. So while he focused on making a superhero movie of his own, the Russos decided they would direct The Electric State after all. They just had to get the action thriller The Gray Man made for Netflix first. This is why it took five years for The Electric State to start filming: all of the directors that have been attached to it were too busy to make it.
In addition to directing the film, the Russos produced it with Mike Larocca, Chris Castaldi, and Patrick Newall. Markus and McFeely serve as executive producers with Russo-Otstot, Jake Aust, Geoff Haley, and Jeff Ford.
CAST
Mille Bobby Brown of Stranger Things signed on to star in the film at the end of 2020, taking on the role of the teenager mentioned in the book description. She’s said to be “a young woman traveling across the country after a civil war between humanity and the robots that once served them spirals out of control. While searching for her missing brother, Brown’s character meets a mysterious smuggler.” That smuggler is played by Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy). Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad) plays an antagonist called the Marshall, who operates a robotic drone remotely and is tasked with hunting down the robot traveling with Brown’s character on her quest. Ke Huy Quan (The Goonies) plays a doctor Brown’s character is desperate to find. Quan’s Everything Everywhere All At Once co-star Michelle Yeoh was once attached to play the character, but had to drop out due to scheduling issues.
Anthony Mackie (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) and Billy Bob Thornton (Sling Blade) provide the voices for robot characters. Mackie’s robot is a sidekick to the smuggler played by Pratt, while Thornton’s robot is a key figure in the civil war. Stanley Tucci (The Devil Wears Prada), Brian Cox (X-Men 2), Martin Klebba (the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise), Woody Norman (C’mon C’mon), Jenny Slate (It Ends with Us), and Jason Alexander (Seinfeld) are also in the cast. Woody Harrelson (Zombieland) plays a robot that was inspired by Mr. Peanut. Russo-Otstot said, “I remember when we had to approach Hormel to ask permission to do this. We were like: ‘It has to be Mr. Peanut. We have to make this work.’ And fortunately, it did work out.“
RELEASE
The Electric State was set up at Universal in 2020, by which time Muschietti had stepped back into an executive producer role while the Russos took the helm. The plan was for the film to get a theatrical release, but then Universal passed it over to Netflix, where the project was overseen by Nick Nesbitt. So, while it may end up getting some theatrical play, this is going to primarily be a streaming release. The film is expected to start streaming on Netflix sometime in March of 2025.
In the build-up to the release, the Motion Picture Association ratings board has revealed that they’ve given the film a PG-13 rating for sci-fi violence/action, language and some thematic material.
And that’s everything we know about The Electric State at this time. Are you looking forward to this film? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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