# The Electric State

The Electric State is a 2025 American science fiction action-adventure film produced and directed by Anthony and Joe Russo. Its screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely is very loosely based on the 2018 illustrated novel by Simon Stålenhag. The film stars Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt, alongside Ke Huy Quan, Jason Alexander, Woody Harrelson, Anthony Mackie, Brian Cox, Jenny Slate, Giancarlo Esposito and Stanley Tucci.
Plans for a film adaptation for the graphic novel were announced in 2017, with Andy Muschietti. The Russo brothers later signed on to direct the film in December 2020. Universal Pictures later acquired the distribution rights to the film before Netflix took over the rights in June 2022. Much of the cast was revealed between June 2022 and November 2024, with filming taking place in Atlanta, Georgia in fall 2024. With a reported budget of $320 million, it is one of the most expensive films ever made.
The Electric State had its world premiere on February 24, 2025, at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, in Los Angeles, California, and was released on Netflix on March 14. The film received negative reviews from critics, with criticism for its departure from the source material.

## Plot

In the year 1990, a war between humans and robots has left the world in disarray. With the help of Sentre CEO Ethan Skate, who developed the Neurocaster Technology that allowed humans to upload their minds into drone robots, humanity managed to win the war, while robots were banished to the exclusion zone. However, the success of the Neurocaster technology meant many people opted to live their virtual lives in a semi-vegetative state while drones do most of the work.
In 1994, Michelle, a teenager, lives with her abusive foster dad Ted. Years earlier, she was involved in a car crash along with her family, in which her parents and brother reportedly perished. She has lived with a succession of foster families, unable to find a stable home. She is also having trouble at school due to her refusal to use Neurocaster technology in order to participate in virtual classes.
One day, a sentient robot Cosmo seeks Michelle out. Cosmo is only able to communicate using gestures and a limited set of pre-recorded words, but manages to convince Michelle that he is controlled by her deceased younger brother Christopher, who was a child prodigy. She and Cosmo set out across a dystopian landscape to find him.
Along the way, they encounter Keats, a veteran with a complex past, and Herman, a sentient robot who is able to take on multiple forms. Together, they meet up with a band of robots in the exclusion zone, led by Mr. Peanut. There, they find Dr. Amherst who explains that Sentre found Christopher in a seemingly permanent vegetative state after the accident and discovered that they could create the Neurocaster technology by exploiting Christopher's exceptional intellect and integrating his consciousness into the Neurocaster; this technology was instrumental in giving humans an advantage during the war against the robots. However, after Christopher unexpectedly came out of his coma thirteen months later, a remorseful Amherst built a way for his mind to escape. Sentre drones under the command of Colonel Bradbury attack, recapturing Christopher, killing Amherst, and destroying the robots' home.
Determined to rescue her brother, Michelle infiltrates Sentre's headquarters with the help of Keats and Herman while the other robots wage war with Skate's drone army. Disgusted with Skate's inhuman actions, Bradbury defects and helps Peanut to confront Skate while Michelle discovers Christopher in a comatose state, his consciousness trapped within the Neurocaster system. In a reunion within the virtual realm, Christopher expresses his desire to be freed from his exploited existence. Respecting his wishes, Michelle disconnects him, resulting in his physical body dying. During the battle, Keats almost loses Herman when his large robot form gets destroyed by a drone robot. However, a miniature version of Herman emerges from the wreckage.
Christopher's death triggers the shutdown of Sentre's drone operations, dismantling Skate's control and ending the exploitation of the Neurocaster technology. In the aftermath, Skate is arrested, and the world begins to rebuild from the devastation wrought by the war and corporate greed. Michelle then broadcasts to the world exposing how the Neurocaster technology has affected people's lives and inviting those who wish to live in peace to the exclusion zone.
Cosmo's body is dumped in a junkyard, but he is shown rising up, suggesting that a part of Christopher's consciousness may still reside within the robot.

## Cast

* Millie Bobby Brown as Michelle Greene
* Chris Pratt as John D. Keats
* Ke Huy Quan as Dr. Clark Amherst / the voice of P.C.
* Stanley Tucci as Ethan Skate
* Woody Norman as Christopher "Chris" Greene
* Giancarlo Esposito as Marshall Bradbury
* Jason Alexander as Ted Finister
* Martin Klebba as Herman
* Marin Hinkle as Ms. Sablinsky
* Michael Trucco as Ben Abbott

### Voices

* Woody Harrelson as Mr. Peanut
* Anthony Mackie as Herman
* Brian Cox as Popfly
* Jenny Slate as Penny Pal
* Alan Tudyk as Cosmo
* Hank Azaria as Perplexo
* Colman Domingo as Wolfe
* Rob Gronkowski as Blitz
* Billy Gardell as Garbage Bot
* Susan Leslie as Mrs. Scissors
* Jordan Black as Clem

## Production

The film was first announced in December 2017, when Anthony and Joe Russo acquired the rights to Simon Stålenhag's 2018 illustrated novel The Electric State. The Russos were set as producers, with Andy Muschietti in negotiations to direct. Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, frequent collaborators of the Russo brothers, were set to write the screenplay. In December 2020, Universal Pictures won the distribution rights to the film, with the Russos now directing and Muschietti remaining as an executive producer on the project via his new production company. Millie Bobby Brown was slated to star, with production set to begin as soon as the Russos completed The Gray Man (2022) and Brown concluded filming for season four of Stranger Things.
In June 2022, it was reported that the film might have its distribution rights transferred to Netflix, as Universal was no longer planning to give the film a theatrical release. Later that month, it was confirmed that Netflix would be distributing the film, with Chris Pratt in talks to star alongside Brown. Pratt would be confirmed in August, with Michelle Yeoh, Stanley Tucci, Jason Alexander, Brian Cox and Jenny Slate joining the cast. Cox and Slate were reported to be voicing characters in the film. In October, Woody Norman was added to the cast. In November, Giancarlo Esposito was cast in the film as the voice of Marshall, a menacing robotic drone. Anthony Mackie and Billy Bob Thornton also joined the cast. Ke Huy Quan, Yeoh's co-star in Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), had to replace her after she left the project due to scheduling conflicts. In October 2024, it was reported that Woody Harrelson, Alan Tudyk, Hank Azaria and Colman Domingo had joined the cast as the voices of robot characters.
Principal photography began in October 2022 in Atlanta, under the working title Stormwind. On November 4, 2022, film production was temporarily paused after a crew member working on the film died in a car crash off-set. Filming officially wrapped in early February 2023. As of February 2024, reshoots had occurred from March 20 to April 5. The score was composed by Alan Silvestri, marking the third collaboration between Silvestri and the Russo Brothers, following their work on Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019).

## Marketing

The first official images and a plot summary of the film were released by Netflix on October 1, 2024. Dais Johnston of Inverse expressed concerns that these photos were confirmation that the film would seemingly be unfaithful to the original book since it showcased a visual style that involved "muddy color-grading" compared to the original artwork from Stålenhag.
Netflix eventually released a teaser trailer on October 17, 2024, during New York Comic Con. It was also confirmed that the film would largely diverge from the original source material in the hopes of telling its own original story, which received a negative response by fans that hoped for a direct adaptation.
These major plot changes were explained at the film's panel, which involved Anthony Russo stating that they did find the original material as "fascinating" and compared their experience of adapting it as similar to the Marvel films. But he also stated that it was difficult for them to understand the story and felt that the world was not shown enough in the graphic novel, which caused the idea of developing it into a two-hour film as challenging. This led to them using the artwork as inspiration to make an entirely new story that featured the usage of 1990s aesthetics and the plot addition of robotic animatronics developing artificial intelligence, which involved them campaigning for equal rights in a retro-futuristic society.

## Release

The Electric State had its world premiere on February 24, 2025, at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, in Los Angeles, California. The film was released on Netflix on March 14, 2025.
A video game based on the film, The Electric State: Kid Cosmo will be released on iOS and Android by Netflix Games on March 18, 2025. It features Michelle and Christopher's childhood while they play through a mobile game featuring Cosmo.

## Reception
### Critical response

Upon release, the film received overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 15% of 107 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 3.8/10. The website's consensus reads: "Lumbering along like a giant automaton, The Electric State has plenty of hardware to back it up but none of the spark that'd make it come to life." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 29 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.
Many critics took issue with the film's loose interpretation of the original novel. In a scathing review by The New York Times' Elisabeth Vincentelli, she panned the film's creative departures from the source material. She opens her review describing the plot of the novel, highlighting how "the book is elliptical in narrative, muted in color palette and melancholy in mood" whereas the movie "is obvious, garish and just plain dumb". Likewise, Courtney Howard of Variety criticized the film's lack of capitalization on its source material, "in favor of a generic conceit centered on freedom, preachy commentary on prejudice and a reductive, rote conflict between humankind and robots." IGN's A. A. Dowd gave the film a 4/10, also critical of the film's handling of the novel, saying: "Leave it to the directors of Marvel's most overstuffed event pictures to bastardize a deeply lonely science fiction yarn into another expensive group hug and team-building comedy routine".
Brown's and Pratt's performances were also received negatively. Kevin Maher of The Sunday Times gave the film one star. He questioned Brown's performances in her previous cinematic outings as well as The Electric State, left wondering if she was "profoundly ill-equipped" for big-screen acting. Comic Book Resources' C.M. Ramsburg came to a similar conclusion, explaining that despite the film's utilization of Pratt and Brown, "their performances remain flat and one-dimensional as they portray characters without depth or substance", giving the film a 3/10. Screen Rant's Alex Harrison found little to note about the film, other than "Millie Bobby Brown's look to echo Eleven and Chris Pratt's look to echo Star Lord".
Several critics drew criticism from the film's reported $320M budget which some thought was wasted. Sam Adams from Slate called the end product disastrous, saying the film joins "the list of the costliest films of all time". New York Post's Johnny Oleksinski noted the Russo Brother's directing efforts after Avengers Endgame as "some of the worst and priciest movies of the past six years". He would go on to pan the film for its lack of originality.