Joe and Anthony Russo are busy these days, getting ready to make the highly-anticipated Marvel films, Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, slated to release in 2026 and 2027, respectively. But Netflix's subscribers will get the chance to watch a smaller film from the directors this month: The Electric State, which is loosely based on the science fiction graphic novel of the same title by Swedish artist/designer Simon Stålenhag.
Netflix has released a new trailer for The Electric State that gives us a look at the film's retro-futuristic world. The film features robots — some of them looking like mascots or cartoons — now living in the Exclusion Zone in the American West after they attempted a failed uprising against humanity in the past. The trailer shows Michelle (played by Millie Bobby Brown), a teenage orphan searching for her long-lost brother Christopher. A cute robot companion named Cosmo (voiced by Alan Tudyk) accompanies her in her journey across the dystopian landscape, and they meet a smuggler named Keats (Chris Pratt) and his robot pal Herman (voiced by Anthony Mackie). Watch the new trailer for The Electric State below:
Netflix previously revealed the main visual for The Electric State:
The Russo Brothers acquired the rights to Stålenhag's book in 2017 and initially planned to make the film with Universal, but when the studio decided it would not be giving the movie a theatrical release, Netflix bought the distribution rights. It's worth mentioning that the Russo brothers have made several plot changes from the source material. The first-look images and the trailer also revealed that the film has more of a colorful 1990s aesthetic than the haunting artworks that originally inspired the movie.
What is The Electric State about?
The Electric State loosely adapts Simon Stålenhag's 2018 sci-fi graphic novel of the same title, and it's set in a similar dystopian ravaged landscape. The artworks and paragraphs of text in the book tell the story of a teen girl named Michelle and her robot companion who must travel across the country to search for her long-lost brother, while trying to escape a federal agent.
The official synopsis of The Electric State reads:
Millie Bobby Brown stars as Michelle, an orphaned teenager navigating life in a society where sentient robots resembling cartoons and mascots, who once served peacefully among humans, now live in exile following a failed uprising. Everything Michelle thinks she knows about the world is upended one night when she’s visited by Cosmo, a sweet, mysterious robot who appears to be controlled by Christopher—Michelle’s genius younger brother whom she thought was dead. Determined to find the beloved sibling she thought she had lost, Michelle sets out across the American Southwest with Cosmo and soon finds herself reluctantly joining forces with Keats, a low-rent smuggler, and his wisecracking robot sidekick, Herman. As they venture into the Exclusion Zone, a walled-off corner in the desert where robots now exist on their own, Keats and Michelle find a strange, colorful group of new animatronic allies — and begin to learn that the forces behind Christopher’s disappearance are more sinister than they ever expected.
The Electric State Cast
Other than Millie Bobbi Brown and Chris Pratt, the cast of The Electric State includes:
Woody Norman as Christopher
Ke Huy Quan as Dr. Amherst (who replaced Michelle Yeoh after she left the project due to scheduling conflicts)
Stanley Tucci as Ethan Skate
Giancarlo Esposito as Colonel Marshall Bradbury
Alan Tudyk as the voice of Cosmo
Anthony Mackie as the voice of Herman
Various robots are voiced by Woody Harrelson, Jason Alexander, Brian Cox, Jenny Slate, Billy Bob Thornton, Colman Domingo, Rob Gronkowski, Hank Azaria, Anthony Mackie, and Billy Gardell
The Electric State is scheduled to release on Netflix on March 14, 2025.
