New 'Behemoth!' Trailer Shows Pedro Pascal Playing Cello in Tony Gilroy's Hollywood Music Drama

Tony Gilroy has spent much of the last decade immersed in the machinery of ‘Star Wars’. After writing ‘Michael Clayton’ and ‘Duplicity’ and creating the acclaimed series ‘Andor’, he is returning to feature filmmaking with something far more intimate. The result is ‘Behemoth!’, a drama about music, memory and family that Searchlight Pictures is positioning for awards season.

The film is Gilroy’s first directed feature since ‘The Bourne Legacy’ in 2012. It stars Pedro Pascal at a moment when the actor is one of the busiest names in Hollywood, and it reunites Gilroy with a creative world that is close to his own history. He has called the project unusually personal, drawing on his early ambitions as a musician.

Now a new trailer for ‘Behemoth!’ has been released, running just over 2 minutes and carrying the line that the movie is only in theaters on December 4. The footage shows an orchestra at work in a recording studio, with a figure in the foreground seen from behind. It sets up the story of a cellist returning to Los Angeles after 20 years, confronting his past along the way.

New trailer for Tony Gilroy’s new film ‘BEHEMOTH!’, starring Pedro Pascal. The film follows a cellist who returns to Los Angeles after 20 years, confronting his past along the way. In theaters on December 4. https://t.co/BMeM0Ctj2Y
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) October 28, 2026

Pascal plays Alex Serian, a gifted cellist who returns home to Los Angeles after 20 years on the road. According to the official synopsis, music, which has been the constant, all-consuming river of his life, begins to carry him on an adventure that will change him forever. The New York Film Festival describes him as a former child prodigy living in the shadow of a storied musical family.

Alex has left an orchestra in Chicago, fleeing a soured relationship with a manic ex played by Olivia Wilde, and has come back to record Hollywood film scores and resolve unfinished family business. The story spans roughly 25 years of his life, with music acting as the connective tissue between different periods. Pascal has described learning to play the cello convincingly as one of the most difficult challenges of his career.

The ensemble includes Eva Victor as a love interest, Will Arnett, Alexa Swinton, Kaya Ralls, Erik Griffin, JoBeth Williams, Margarita Levieva, Hank Azaria and Matthew Lillard. The casting changed along the way. Pascal replaced Oscar Isaac, who exited the project, and Arnett took over from David Harbour, who left for personal reasons.

Music is a character in its own right. Gilroy recruited 9 composers, including Michael Giacchino, James Newton Howard, Alan Silvestri, Michael Abels, Emily Bear, Henry Jackman, Nami Melumad, Brandon Roberts and Lukas Frank, to build the various fictional scores heard throughout the film. The idea is that Alex’s career moves through different movies, each with its own sound.

The film premiered at the 2026 New York Film Festival, and early reviews have been mixed but generally positive about Pascal. IndieWire’s David Ehrlich gave it a B+, calling it a movingly atonal character study. He described a hot but avoidant cellist who is drawn to strong but unavailable women and who is seduced back into his memories as a session player.

Not everyone agrees on the structure. One review said the film is in desperate need of a conductor and praised Pascal’s performance while calling it uneven, with a fragmented storytelling approach limiting the emotional impact. Even so, the rich score and sound design have been singled out as its strongest elements.

The movie is rated R for language and sexual references and runs 2 hours and 4 minutes. Searchlight is releasing it on Friday, December 4, in limited theaters, placing it in the heart of the awards corridor. Filming took place in Los Angeles from October 27, 2025 to January 23, 2026.

Pascal has said he read the script and knew right away he wanted the part, a reminder of how much the role means to him. The trailer shows him playing much of the cello himself, which adds authenticity. That commitment could be a selling point as the film heads into the season.

For Gilroy, the film is a chance to show a gentler side after years of espionage thrillers and space rebellion. Whether the audience follows him into the world of film scoring will become clear in December. For now, the trailer suggests a film that wants to be heard as much as seen.