Anthony and Joe Russo have their hands full these days with the Marvel films Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret War, slated for 2026 and 2027 releases, respectively. But we’ll get a chance to see another, smaller film from the directors this month on Netflix: The Electric State, adapted from the graphic novel by Swedish artist/designer Simon Stålenhag.
Stålenhag’s stunningly surreal neofuturistic art—featured in his narrative art books, 2014’s Tales from the Loop and 2016’s Things From the Flood—inspired the 2020 eight-episode series Tales From the Loop, in which residents of a rural town find themselves grappling with strange occurrences thanks to the presence of an underground particle accelerator. That adaptation captured the mood and tone of the art that inspired it and received Emmy nominations for cinematography and special visual effects.
The Electric State was Stålenhag’s third such book, published in 2018 and set in a similar dystopian, ravaged landscape. Paragraphs of text, accompanied by larger artworks, tell the story of a teen girl named Michelle who must travel across the country with her robot companion to find her long-lost brother, while being pursued by a federal agent. The Russo brothers acquired the rights early on and initially intended to make the film with Universal, but when the studio decided it would not be giving the film a theatrical release, Netflix bought the distribution rights.
It’s worth noting that the Russo brothers have made several major plot changes from the source material, a decision that did not please Stålenhag’s many fans, particularly since the first-look images revealed that the directors were also adopting more of a colorful 1990s aesthetic than the haunting art that originally inspired their film. Per the official premise:
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.
In addition to Brown and Chris Pratt, the cast includes Woody Norman as Christopher; Ke Huy Quan as Dr. Amherst (who replaced Michelle Yeoh after she had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts); Stanley Tucci as Ethan Skate; Giancarlo Esposito as Colonel Marshall Bradbury; Alan Tudyk, voicing Cosmo; and Anthony Mackie voicing Herman. Also providing voices for various robots are Jason Alexander, Woody Harrelson, Anthony Mackie, Brian Cox, Jenny Slate, Billy Bob Thornton, Hank Azaria, Colman Domingo, Rob Gronkowski, and Billy Gardell.
The Electric State premieres on Netflix on March 14, 2025.
