First Look at Avengers: Endgame Directors’ New Sci-Fi Film

Chris Pratt and Millie Bobby Brown are facing off against a robot uprising in The Electric State .

Directed by Avengers: Endgame filmmakers Joe and Anthony Russo, The Electric State takes place in an alternate 1994 following a devastating war between humans and AI.

The defeated machines are now living in an exclusion zone in the desert, while humans are attempting to rebuild society. Among them is Millie Bobby Brown as Michelle, a young woman searching for a lost brother with the help of a retro robot that can only speak in catchphrases.

Chris Pratt, meanwhile, co-stars as war veteran Keats. Now a trucker, he’s teamed up with a construction machine named Herman (voiced by fellow Marvel star Anthony Mackie). Herman’s special ability is stacking smaller versions inside himself like a Russian nesting doll. Together, the trio embark on a road trip to rescue Michelle’s brother. Speaking of Marvel, by the way, did you know the Avengers: Endgame portal scene almost didn’t happen ?

“You can recognize humanity in technology, and you can recognize inhumanity in humans,” Anthony Russo tells Vanity Fair. “Both things are possible. That’s the struggle.”

The Electric State draws inspiration from 2018 book The Electric State by artist Simon Stålenhag. “The texture in the images was really powerful, and it felt like a story about broken families and broken people trying to find each other in a broken world,” Joe Russo says. “It also felt resonant to us, raising our kids in a technology-heavy world.”

Despite the heavy themes, there’s levity in the film. That’s where Mr. Peanut comes in. Voiced by Woody Harrelson, Mr. Peanut is a human-sized robotic peanut who leads the machine revolution. From the images of him teaming up with Bobby Brown’s character, it looks like Mr. Peanut is a force for good.

“We did fashion a folksy vibe off of Jimmy Carter,” Anthony Russo says. “He almost has this bit of a shared history with Carter in the sense of he was more concerned with the ideals than the practicality, and things didn’t work as well as he hoped,” says Joe Russo.