Behemoth! leans on Pascal and Andor, but its real hook is the music

When a trailer's headline is "the Andor creator's new movie," what is it really selling: a story or a résumé? Behemoth! is the latest test case, and the answer is more interesting than the marketing suggests.

Here is the short version. Searchlight Pictures has released a new trailer for Tony Gilroy's film, which opens in select US theaters on December 4. Pedro Pascal plays Alex Serian, a gifted cellist who returns to Los Angeles after 20 years on the road. As Collider notes, it is Gilroy's first directorial feature since The Bourne Legacy in 2012, and the outlet frames him largely through his Andor run. Headlines across the web followed the same script: Pascal first, Andor second.

The branding is smart, and it's also a shortcut

We get why. Pascal is a draw, and Andor is the kind of credential that makes a certain audience lean in. It tells viewers that Gilroy can write adults talking in rooms and make it feel dangerous. For a mid-sized drama arriving in select theaters, borrowing that goodwill is sensible.

But it is a shortcut, and a slightly misleading one. Nothing about a cellist returning to Los Angeles resembles a Star Wars rebellion. Selling it as "from the creator of Andor" invites expectations of tension and intrigue that this film, going by the descriptions, is not built to deliver. If the audience arrives expecting a political thriller and gets a personal story about a musician, the branding has done the film a disservice.

The real pitch is buried under the credits

What strikes us as the genuinely distinct idea is the one the headlines treat as a footnote. FirstShowing reports that the film is a love letter to the music of the movies, and that Gilroy has loved film scores his whole life. The score comes from a group billed as "The Behemoth! Collective," with names including Michael Giacchino, James Newton Howard, Henry Jackman and Alan Silvestri.

That is a real hook. Films about film-making are common, but a drama about the person who writes the music, and not the director or the star, is a much narrower and fresher subject. The title joke helps: "Behemoth!" is the secret code name of the movie Alex is hired to score, and the trailer opens with him being told to sign an NDA, per ABC7. It's a nice, wry entry point. Honestly, we'd lead with that.

The festival reception says: don't oversell it

There is a caveat, and the sources disagree on it. Collider cites an 86% Rotten Tomatoes score after the New York Film Festival premiere. FirstShowing describes the reviews as mixed. Wikipedia's summary points to praise for Pascal, the direction and the score, but criticism of the writing and structure. We can't settle that from here, and we wouldn't try to.

Still, that last criticism matters. Collider says the story unfolds non-linearly, flashing back across those 20 years. A fractured structure can be a strength or a way of hiding thin material, and a trailer can't tell us which. It's the clearest risk we see: a film about music that has gorgeous sound and a loose script.

Our verdict

Watch the trailer for the cello, the composers and the offbeat premise, not for the Andor name. If the film works, it will be because Gilroy found a specific, personal subject, and that deserves to be the marketing line. If it stumbles, it will probably be on structure, and no amount of pedigree will cover that. Our advice: treat the branding as an invitation, then judge the movie on its own terms when it opens on December 4.