Despite not being a huge fan of the fantasy genre, Death of a Unicorn is one of the upcoming A24 movies that I am most looking forward to. It boasts a star-studded cast including Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega, some esteemed talent behind the scenes, and a very unique, modernized take on the eponymous mythological creature. There are plenty more reasons to be excited about this potentially great A24 movie, so let’s get into what we know about Death of a Unicorn thus far.
What Is The Death Of A Unicorn Release Date?
Death of a Unicorn is on our upcoming 2025 movie schedule and set for a theatrical release in spring of that year. However, much like the mysterious qualities of its titular mythological being, its exact release date remains unknown. I will be sure to let you know as soon as a date is confirmed.
The Death Of A Unicorn Trailer Has Me Feeling “Good Vibrations”
Most of my favorite films from A24, such as the Best Picture Oscar winner Everything Everywhere All at Once, have indulged in being weird and wacky to a shameless degree. I already had a feeling that Death of a Unicorn would fit perfectly into that category but the first official trailer for the fantasy-comedy absolutely confirms it. See for yourself by watching the clip below:
Set in part to The Beach Boys’ 1966 hit single, “Good Vibrations,” the teaser boasts many positively surreal and uproarious moments and even hints that it deserves a spot on our upcoming horror movies guide with a few beastly scenes. However, it also manages to ground the story in a satirical fashion by revealing the story as yet another “eat-the-rich” drama in the vein of Triangle of Sadness but with supernatural elements.
What Death Of A Unicorn Is About
You could likely guess from the title that Death of a Unicorn involves a certain relatively well-known animal from fantasy lore meeting an awful fate. As the trailer reveals, the plot is even more complicated and oddly grounded than its basic gist.
The titular tragedy is caused when Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega’s characters accidentally hit the creature while driving to a conference involving a discussion of crisis management in the workplace. While there, the family that owns a pharmaceutical company where Rudd’s character works get their hands on the unicorn and discover it has special purposes which they intend to benefit from. However, they soon discover that the unicorn has also a family member nearby and it is not happy to learn about its relative’s fate.
Paul Rudd And Jenna Ortega Lead The Death Of A Unicorn Cast
As established, the Death of a Unicorn cast is stacked with big names — including a few A24 veterans and a number of actors making their debut collaborations with the company. Let’s go over who Deadline previously reported is confirmed to appear in the film.
Paul Rudd
Paul Rudd has dealt with some fantastic circumstances in some of his more recent efforts — such as in the Marvel movies as Ant-Man and when he took over the Ghostbusters franchise. The actor first gained notoriety, however, with comedies like Clueless and Wet Hot American Summer and Judd Apatow movies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and considering how Death of a Unicorn is being called a dark fantasy comedy, this film seems right up his alley. The two-time Emmy nominee also has another A24 movie coming out soon called Friendship.
Jenna Ortega (Ridley)
Playing Paul Rudd’s onscreen daughter – identified in the trailer as Ridley – is Jenna Ortega, who previously starred in one of the best A24 horror movies, X, in 2022. Earlier that year, she started gaining traction as one of today’s top Scream Queens by joining the Scream franchise and more recently kept up that reputation by being one of the best things about Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Other upcoming Jenna Ortega movies and TV shows include the second season of Wednesday and Taika Waititi’s upcoming sci-fi movie, Klara and the Sun.
Richard E. Grant
A Death of a Unicorn cast member already well-versed in comedy, fantasy, and a mix of both is Richard E. Grant. The English actor is known for his acclaimed debut in 1987’s Withnail & I, spooky family movies like The Little Vampire and Corpse Bride, and the bizarre 1989 satire, How to Get Ahead in Advertising. His more recent notable works include earning an Oscar nomination for Can You Ever Forgive Me?, joining the MCU as a Loki variant, and starring in Saltburn.
Téa Leoni
The last major acting role for Teá Leoni was Elizabeth McCord on the hit CBS political drama Madam Secretary. Her most notable big-screen credits include Wyatt Earp, 1995’s Bad Boys, Deep Impact, and Spanglish, but the actor has also encountered otherworldly circumstances in films like the 2000 fantasy dramedy The Family Man, the third installment of the Jurassic Park movies, and 2008’s Ghost Town. According to Deadline, Leoni is set to star in Only Murders in the Building Season 5, reprising her brief appearance as Sofia Caccimelio in the Season 4 finale.
Will Poulter
Another MCU star in the Death of a Unicorn cast is Will Poulter. The Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Adam Warlock actor also has a previous A24 horror flick under his belt: 2019’s Midsommar. The English actor has shown his impressive versatility in titles like the 2013 comedy We’re the Millers, acclaimed period dramas The Revenant and Detroit, Hulu’s Emmy-winning fact-based miniseries Dopesick, and more. The two-time Emmy nominee also has another A24 movie coming out in 2025 with Alex Garland’s Warfare, in the role of an American soldier stationed in Iraq.
Anthony Carrigan
Anthony Carrigan is best known for his three-time Emmy-nominated role in HBO’s Barry as NoHo Hank. His most notable feature-length roles include a robot named Dennis Caleb McRoy in Bill & Ted Face the Music and a good friend to Kevin Hart’s character in Netflix’s 2021 dramedy, Fatherhood. He is about to make his comic book film debut by appearing in James Gunn’s upcoming DC movie, Superman, as Metamorpho.
Sunita Mani
One of the more experienced A24 veterans in the Death of a Unicorn cast is Sunita Mani, who was in Daniel Scheinert’s 2019 dramedy The Death of Dick Long before reuniting with him (along with Daniel Kwan) for a cameo in Everything Everywhere All At Once in 2022 and appearing in You Hurt My Feelings the following year. The comedian is also known for Netflix’s GLOW, the 2020 horror-comedy Save Yourselves!, and played the Ghost of Christmas Past in Apple TV+’s Spirited. Also in 2025, you can see her in Jay Roach’s The Roses and a TV show called Government Cheese.
Jessica Hynes
Fans of Simon Pegg’s work should recognize Jessica Hynes from the acclaimed British sitcom, Spaced, and her brief role in the horror-comedy classic, Shaun of the Dead. The actor and writer also has some notable fantasy roles up her sleeve, including in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and another kids movie the whole family will love: Paddington 2. She more recently appeared on The Franchise, which is streaming on Max, and has a role in the upcoming BBC miniseries Miss Austen.
Stephen Park
Those who may not recognize Stephen Park by name surely know his work, which includes older Oscar darlings like Do the Right Thing and great Coen Brothers movies such as Fargo and A Serious Man. He more recently starred in Wes Anderson movies The French Dispatch and Asteroid City, and is reuniting with his Snowpiercer director, Bong Joon-ho for the upcoming sci-fi thriller, Mickey 17.
Death Of A Unicorn Is Alex Scharfman’s Directorial Debut
Death of a Unicorn is the first feature-length film from writer and director Alex Scharfman, but it is not his first collaboration with A24, as it turns out. He is credited on IMDb as a production executive for 2015’s The Witch, American Honey from the following year, and Backstabbing for Beginners from 2018. He also served as a producer for the 2019 Amazon Original crime dramedy, Blow the Man Down, and one of the best horror movies of 2022, the Rebecca Hall-led Resurrection.
Scharfman is also one of the producers of Death of a Unicorn, alongside another artist who has also worked with A24 in the past: Ari Aster.
Aster has quickly become one of the most acclaimed and feared names in horror for delivering relentlessly brutal, deeply unsettling, and endlessly fascinating thrills with films like 2018’s Hereditary, the aforementioned Midsommar, and his most recent, Golden Globe-nominated, epic absurdist odyssey, Beau is Afraid, from 2023. He is reuniting with Beau is Afraid star Joaquin Phoenix as the writer and director of Eddington, his upcoming neo-Western thriller which is also due in 2025.
John Carpenter Is Composing The Score
Aster is not the only horror auteur working on Death of a Unicorn as the one and only John Carpenter is also involved but not quite in the way you might have expected. The director of some of the greatest horror movies of all time, including Halloween and The Thing, is the film’s composer.
According to Bloody-Disgusting, Carpenter is working on the score with his son, Cody, as well as Daniel Davies, who is a rock god in his own right as a member of bands like Year Long Disaster and also rock royalty, being the son of The Kinks guitarist, Dave Davies. Cody and Davies previously collaborated on the music for each of David Gordon Green’s Halloween movies with Carpenter, who has also been the composer for much of his renowned filmography with notable exceptions, including Ennio Morricone’s The Thing score.
The Film Was Cleared To Shoot During The Actors’ And Writers’ Strikes
While we still do not know exactly when Death of a Unicorn is set to come out, we know that the film has been in the can for a while. It was able to complete principal photography in Hungary in mid-2023 while the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes were still taking place.
How is this possible? According to a report by Variety, SAG-AFTRA approved several independent productions to continue shooting without violating the picket line, including A24 titles Mother Mary and Death of a Unicorn. The production company is not part of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which is the organization that both the writing and acting guilds were striking against out of demand for fairer wages, among other requests.
Are you as excited for A24’s Death of Unicorn as I am? If so, be sure to check back here for further updates.
