Before making their triumphant return to the MCU in Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, Joe and Anthony Russo have one more movie up their sleeve. Next year, the directing duo will be bringing Simon Stålenhag‘s illustrated novel, The Electric State to the screen.
The post-apocalyptic setting of the story is in an alternate reality in 1997 after a war between technology gone amuck and humans has decimated most of the United States. Massive drones that were once used in combat, now litter the land and pose multi-layered dangers to the humans that survived the fighting. The Electric State follows the adventures of a girl who is trying to get across the country to find her younger brother.
While it may sound similar to other dystopian stories that involve young adults trying to make their way through an apocalyptic landscape, the unique world created by Simon Stålenhag is an exciting new addition to the post-apocalyptic dystopian subgenre of science fiction. In addition to having the Russo brothers spearhead the film, there’s a slew of well-known actors attached to the project. This should help elevate the story told in the graphic novel and bring Stålenhag’s electric-infused dystopian nightmare world to life.
To learn more about everything we know about The Electric State, be sure to read below.
8 Does ‘The Electric State’ Have a Release Date?
The Electric State is set to debut on Friday, March 14, 2025. Three years after, the movie was first announced to have been picked up by Netflix
7 Will ‘The Electric State’ Be in Theaters?
The Electric State will be exclusively debuting on Netflix in March 2024. As of right now, there have been no announcements pertaining to a potential theatrical release, but it doesn’t seem too likely at this point.
The Electric State will be one of the bigger titles in Netflix’s exciting 2025 movie slate, which also includes Rian Johnson‘s star-studded whodunit threequel Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, the Jamie Foxx–Cameron Diaz-led action comedy Back in Action, the long-awaited Adam Sandler sequel Happy Gilmore 2, and Guillermo del Toro‘s Frankenstein.
6 Is There a Trailer for ‘The Electric State’?
The first teaser trailer for The Electric State was released by Netflix on October 17, shortly before the movie’s panel at New York Comic Con 2024. Set to Oasis‘ “Champaigne Supernova,” the trailer shows a teenage girl traveling from a decaying Seattle shortly after a robot uprising, and teaming up with a mysterious drifter, and a smiling yellow robot, in order to find her lost brother.
5 Who Stars in ‘The Electric State’?
Netflix’s It-Girl Millie Bobby Brown stars in The Electric State as Michelle, the young heroine at the center of the film, who goes on a cross-country question to save her younger brother. The movie marks Brown’s fifth collaboration with Netflix, after her breakthrough role as Eleven on the mega-popular series Stranger Things, playing the titular role in the two Enola Holmes films, and most recently, starring in the fantasy-action flick Damsel.
Chris Pratt will star as Keats, a drifter that Michelle meets on her travels. This won’t be the first time Pratt has worked with the Russo Brothers, having reprised his role as Star-Lord in both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.
Other cast members include Academy Award winner Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All at Once) as Dr. Amherst, Academy Award nominee Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones) as Ethan Skate, Woody Norman (C’mon C’mon) as Michelle’s brother Christopher, Martin Klebba (Pirates of the Caribbean) as Herman, and Giancarlo Esposito (The Mandalorian) as the film’s villain, Colonel Marshall Bradbury. Jason Alexander (Seinfeld) also stars in a currently undisclosed role.
The Electric State also features an impressive cast of actors and actresses in voice roles, including Anthony Mackie (Captain America: Brave New World) as Herman, Academy Award nominee Woody Harrelson (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) as Mr. Peanut (yes, that Mr. Peanut), Brain Cox (Succession) as PopFly, and Jenny Slate (Marcel the Shell with Shoes On) as Penny Pal. Alan Tudyk (Resident Alien) will also be voicing an undisclosed character.
Interestingly, Oscar-winning actress Michelle Yeoh was originally cast in The Electric State in the role of a human doctor that Michelle must find as part of her journey. But she dropped out due to conflicts and her Everything Everywhere All At Once co-star Ke Huy Quan stepped in to play the role instead.
4 What Is ‘The Electric State’ About?
Set in an alternative world in the year 1997, The Electric State follows a teenager named Michelle who sets out on a cross-country journey through a retro-futuristic United States to find her younger brother. Joining her on the journey is a robot sent to her by her brother to help her find him.
Together they must dodge the monstrous drones left behind after the last war that roamed the landscape, one of which is hunting for Michelle’s robot companion. They also encounter a mysterious drifter who may be able to help them avoid the drones and make it safely to the other side of the country if Michelle can trust him.
The official synopsis for The Electric State, from Netflix, reads:
The Electric State
is a spectacular adventure from the directors of
Avengers: Endgame
set in an alternate, retro-futuristic version of the 1990s. Millie Bobby Brown (
Stranger Things
,
Enola Holmes
,
Damsel
) 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 (Chris Pratt,
Guardians of the Galaxy
,
Jurassic World
), a low-rent smuggler, and his wisecracking robot sidekick, Herman (voiced by Anthony Mackie). 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.
3 Who Is Making ‘The Electric State’?
In the early stages of pre-production Andy Muschietti, best known for directing the IT movies and The Flash, was attached to the film with the Russo Brothers attached as producers and Universal serving as the distributor.
The Russos eventually took over directing the film entirely, after Muschietti was brought on to direct The Flash for Warner Bros. In June 2022, it was announced that Netflix would be backing the film instead of Universal.
This will mark the second time the Russo Brothers will be directing a film for Netflix after The Gray Man. The duo also produced both Extraction films for the streamer, with Joe Russo also penning the screenplays.
Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely are behind the screenplay marking their sixth collaboration with the directors after Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, and The Gray Man.
2 When and Where Did ‘The Electric State’ Film?
Filming for The Electric Statetook place in Atlanta, Georgia with production beginning in October 2022 and wrapping in February 2023.
1 What Is the Budget for ‘The Electric State’?
The Electric State marks the most expensive Netflix film to date, rumored to have cost around $320 million. If this is to be believed, the budget for the new film would greatly exceed the previous record-holders, which were The Gray Man and Red Notice, which both cost an estimated $200 million.
