The Russo brothers on: The Electric State, Millie Bobby Brown and their next anime project

Directed by the Russo brothers, the directors of Avengers: Endgame and adapted from the graphic novel by Simon Stålenhag, The Electric State is a spectacular sci-fi adventure set in an alternate, retro-futuristic version of the 1990s.

Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things) 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), 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…

We sat down with the Russo brothers to find out how they balanced 90s nostalgia with sci-fi world-building, what it was like to tell a smaller sci-fi story than what they’ve been used to (just one world this time!), working with Millie Bobby Brown and discover the anime project they’ve been quietly working on…

The Electric State is available to stream on Netflix from 14 March 2025. Read our review here.