“The Electric State Plot” teased by Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt

The Electric State promised big adventure and even bigger action during a panel discussion at New York Comic Con introducing Anthony and Joe Russo’s latest Netflix film.

The footage and discussion with creatives and cast – including Chris Pratt and Millie Bobbie Brown – were presented to an enthusiastic audience at the Empire Stage on Thursday, hours after a new teaser trailer was posted online.

The film will be released on Netflix on March 16th and is a further development of the graphic novel by Simon Stålenhag, which focuses on a battle between humans and intelligent machines from the 90s.

Electric state follows Michelle (Brown), a young woman with a cute but mysterious robot, who teams up with eccentric drifter Keats (Pratt) on a cross-country expedition to find her brother in a retro-futuristic USA, where a A war between humans and AI has found a restless following.

Joe, who jokingly shared that he’s “exhausted” with his current work schedule (which includes two upcoming works). avenger Films), noted that he and Anthony began working on the project five years ago and were excited to reunite with some of them Avengers: Endgame Staff members including Pratt, Anthony Mackie and authors Christopher Markus Stephen McFeely.

“It’s a real passion project. We are very excited to introduce it to the audience. It’s huge. We love telling very big stories,” Joe said.

Pratt shared that before he took over the script, he had “100 percent” planned to take some time off, but when he started working again with previous collaborators, the story grabbed him.

“It’s not what is normally done for a blockbuster film like this. It’s so original, it’s a huge swing,” Pratt explained. “I thought that these kinds of films could be my last opportunity to act in a big film like this. I have to take every opportunity like that. And that’s what I did. It’s just a great story. I was moved to tears reading it.”

Regarding how the Russos approached this adaptation, Anthony pointed to the “fascinating” art of Stålenhag’s graphic novel and compared the experience to adapting Marvel Comics content Captain America: Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War And Endgame.

“We just looked at the images and the story he tells in the graphic novel. It’s very opaque. It’s kind of hard to understand. You can tell at a glance,” Anthony said. “You realize that behind what he tells you in the graphic novel there is a much larger world that you can only imagine.”

Part of the challenge was telling a story in a two-hour feature film rather than a larger graphic novel. “You have to be much more specific about the narrative, so we had a lot of fun leaning into that and using his incredible artwork as inspiration to figure out what kind of story we can tell this world,” Anthony said.

Joe and Anthony learned about the industry on television shows Captured development And Community. Joe noted that there are a lot of them Community-like elements in the film, along with current conversations and topics.

“Imagine the 1990s where Disney animatronics became sentient in the late 50s and then started demanding equal rights,” Joe said. “That’s it, this is where the war comes out. It taps into the 90s in a way that supports the storytelling and theme of the film.”

Pratt added of the time period, “It’s the ’90s reflecting our modern world.” In a behind-the-scenes clip, Pratt and Brown showed off the various props and production design elements that reflect the film’s ’90s nostalgia, as Big Mouth Billy Bass, Cabbage Patch Kids, Barbie, VHS and Beanie Babies. It was emphasized how the film will pay tribute to the era while incorporating modern technology and themes.

Regarding what the directors were trying to evoke, Joe noted and referenced that they took inspiration from the ’80s films of Amblin or Robert Zemeckis, as well as Alan Silvestri’s film music Back to the future.

Brown later revealed that she had little preparation between filming this film and another, but took the time to think about what she wanted her “angsty teenager” character to evoke and sent photos of Drew Barrymore in the ’90s. “I had never done anything like this before,” Brown said. “It was completely different. It challenged me as an actor…The Russos did such a great job of navigating my career…I kept going back to the Russos: ‘How am I going to play this and that?’ Together we really found it.”

New footage showed Brown and Pratt’s character being carried around in an old Volkswagen van by Herman, Keats’ giant robot friend (voiced by Anthony Mackie). As Keats remembers why he has trust issues and how the two met and saved each other in the robot wars, they come across a seemingly abandoned mall. But they soon discover that it is not deserted when they are attacked and accosted by a new robot after their transport overturns.

After the clip, Joe talked about Bot Herman’s backstory and revealed more about the main roles that robots and humans will play in the film. “The interesting thing about all the main characters in the film is that they all have trauma in their lives that they’re running from,” he said. “They are all dropouts in their own way. Technology is truly omnipresent in the film, but none of them want to take part in it and they have found their own way to escape it. Herman is a dropout. He left the robot society. Don’t get involved… They live together off the grid and on the run from the law.”

Brown and Pratt also talked about how working with motion capture and other technologies presented fun challenges. “I’m very grateful to the Russians, but also to the mocap actors and crew who helped build the world so we didn’t have to do most of the work ourselves,” said Brown.

In addition to Pratt and Brown, the film also stars Ke Huy Quan, Stanley Tucci, Jason Alexander, Giancarlo Esposito and Woody Norman, with Woody Harrelson, Mackie, Brian Co and Jenny Slate lending their voices to the film’s lead robots. While discussing the film, the directors talked about it The Electric StateThe cast opens up about their love of ensembles.

“We’re big fans of ensemble storytelling. You can see it in all of our work: our smaller films, our larger films, our television work. We think it’s because we came from a large Italian-American family where a lot of people lived together in small rooms and were constantly talking loudly,” Anthony said. “You just develop a sense of community and an appreciation for the diversity of voices that contribute to your experience.”

To close the panel, Brown delivered a heartfelt message about the importance of families watching escapist films, something the Russians touched on at the start of the panel. “It really takes you on a journey,” she said. “Escapism is great, and I think it’s so beautiful for families to have that moment where they can get out of this world that’s so scary and into a world that’s so transformative.”