Pedro Pascal Learned the Cello for Tony Gilroy's First Film in 14 Years. Here Is What to Expect From Behemoth!

On October 28, Searchlight released the full trailer for Behemoth!, and it opens on a joke about secrecy. Pedro Pascal's cellist is handed a confidentiality agreement for a recording job and wants to know what "Behemoth" even is. Then it cuts to Alex arriving back in Los Angeles: "I'm here to work."

The movie itself is no secret anymore. It premiered on October 2 as the Centerpiece selection of the 64th New York Film Festival, has played festivals from London to Tokyo since, and opens in limited release in US theaters on Friday, December 4. Here is what to expect.

The story: a session cellist comes home

Pascal plays Alex Serian, a gifted cellist who returns to Los Angeles after 20 years on the road to record film scores. Searchlight's synopsis calls music "the constant, all-consuming river of his life." Dark Horizons describes Alex as a former child prodigy and a third-generation studio musician. Each time he plays the opening cue of a different fictional movie, a flashback fills in why he left and what brought him home after nearly 25 years.

It is a family movie as much as a music one. Hank Azaria plays his father, Peter, and Will Arnett his brother, Andy. Olivia Wilde is his ex-girlfriend Carol, and Eva Victor (writer, director and star of Sorry, Baby) plays Nadia, a fellow cellist. Matthew Lillard and JoBeth Williams are also in the cast.

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The hook: nine real composers, nine fake movies

This is the detail film-music fans will care about most. Because Alex plays on other people's scores, Gilroy wanted each fictional film to sound like it came from a different composer. So he hired nine real ones: Michael Giacchino, James Newton Howard, Alan Silvestri, Henry Jackman, Michael Abels, Emily Bear, Lukas Frank, Nami Melumad and Brandon Roberts. The score is credited to "The Behemoth! Collective."

Two are longtime Gilroy collaborators. James Newton Howard scored Michael Clayton, Duplicity and The Bourne Legacy, and Brandon Roberts worked with him on the second season of Andor. The rest is a cross-section of modern film scoring, from Silvestri, who wrote the Back to the Future and Avengers themes, to Abels, who scored Get Out.

Tony Gilroy's first film in 14 years

Gilroy wrote or co-wrote the first four Bourne movies, earned Oscar nominations for directing and writing Michael Clayton, and co-wrote Rogue One. His last film as director was The Bourne Legacy in 2012. Since then he has been best known for creating Andor, the Star Wars series that ran two seasons on Disney+.

Behemoth! is an original screenplay, and a family production. His brother John Gilroy, who edited Michael Clayton, edited and produced it. The road to the screen was bumpy. Oscar Isaac was first attached to star, and by August 2025 Pascal was in talks to replace him, per Deadline. David Harbour then left during the Los Angeles shoot in January 2026, and Will Arnett stepped in as Alex's brother. Filming ran from October 2025 to January 2026.

What critics said at the festivals

The reviews are good, not unanimous. As of October 31, Behemoth! holds 86 percent on Rotten Tomatoes from 50 reviews and a 72 on Metacritic from 20 critics, which Metacritic labels generally favorable.

• The case for: /Film's Jeremy Mathai gave it 8.5 out of 10 and called Pascal's work "a genuine movie star performance." TheWrap's Zachary Lee called the film "a love letter not just to film music, but to the complicated and passionate musicians who bring it to life." IndieWire's David Ehrlich gave it a B+.
• The case against: The Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney found it "alternately intriguing and frustrating," a film that plays adagio when it needs to be agitato. The Guardian's Owen Myers gave it two stars out of five, arguing it "doesn't have the juice" to carry a plot-free character study.

The split is mostly about the structure, not the lead. Even ScreenDaily's Nikki Baughan, who felt the story often gives in to cliché, praised Pascal's "terrific performance as a tortured creative soul." If flashback-driven character studies test your patience, read that as a warning. If you liked Tár or Whiplash, read it as an invitation.

How and when to see it

Behemoth! opens in limited release on December 4, rated R for language and sexual references, and runs just over two hours. Limited means select cities first, so check listings before you plan a night around it. A movie built on nine original scores is also a strong argument for a room with good speakers.

Pedro Pascal's two-week December

December 4 is only half of Pascal's month. Two weeks later, on December 18, he is back as Reed Richards in Avengers: Doomsday, the Russo brothers' crossover with Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom, which we broke down after D23. That is a quiet cello drama and the next Avengers movie 14 days apart, seven months after he led The Mandalorian and Grogu.

That same Friday also brings Dune: Part Three, as we covered in August, so Behemoth! gets a two-week head start before two of the year's biggest releases arrive on the same day.

It also sets up a good December argument. Once you have seen it, put Behemoth! head to head with the Pascal you already know: Din Djarin and Gilroy's own Rogue One in our Star Wars movies ranked list, and Reed Richards in Marvel movies ranked. A man and a cello against a Mandalorian and a stretchy scientist is exactly the kind of matchup Shortlist was built for.

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