While intimate meet and greets with music stars can feel almost like spiritual experiences, the first trailer for A24’s Opus is a reminder to never meet your heroes.
From writer / director Mark Anthony Green, Opus follows music journalist Ariel Ecton (Ayo Edebiri) hunt down the story of a lifetime. Ariel is as shocked as anyone when she hears that eclectic super star Alfred Moretti (John Malkovich) has emerged from his compound for the first time in three decades to share new music with a select group of celebrities like sex symbol Clara (Juliette Lewis) and seasoned entertainment media folks like Stan (Murray Bartlett).
Because she’s a younger writer, Ariel assumes that she’ll be hearing Moretti’s latest once it’s released to the general public. But when Ariel directly receives an invitation to spend the weekend at Moretti’s, it’s clear that he very much wants her specifically to get a taste of what he’s been working on.
Though everyone expects to see some peculiar things on Moretti’s property, Ariel is understandably taken aback in Opus’ new trailer as she sees things that definitely make it seem like one of her idols has been running a cult with himself as its figurehead. Between the trailer’s shots of Moretti’s confused / alarmed house guests and Ariel running in terror, Opus sort of looks like it might be a musical answer to Mark Mylod’s The Menu.
And it feels like the movie might be one of 2025’s first disturbing thrillers when Opus hits theaters on March 14th.