Alex Scharfman’s feature directorial debut, Death of a Unicorn, is an A24 film starring Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega. 

However, Scharfman’s journey to this point was not an easy one. With over 15 years of experience as a producer and screenwriter, he refined his craft and caught the attention of Paul Rudd.

Rudd took notice of Scharfman’s script, The Cats of Baxley, which led to the development of Death of a Unicorn. The film tells the story of a father-daughter duo who accidentally collide with a baby unicorn, leading to a pharmaceutical family’s pursuit of the creature’s medicinal benefits.

Scharfman cast Ortega right before her breakout role in the Netflix series Wednesday. “We sent [Death of a Unicorn] to her the weekend before Wednesday premiered [in November 2022],” Scharfman recalled. 

“So I don’t know what we would’ve done if we didn’t get Jenna. It’s such a hard role, and she does such an incredible job with it.”

His experience working with producer Lars Knudsen and watching Robert Eggers develop his films influenced his approach to Death of a Unicorn. 

“It’s not like I was his research associate or anything, but just passively being around his research and reading his scripts and seeing where his brain was going with his next project, it’s a pretty incredible thing how researched-based he is,” Scharfman said.

This experience inspired Scharfman to create a detailed unicorn lore for Death of a Unicorn. “I knew that I wanted [Death of a Unicorn] to be a modern monster movie adaptation of unicorn lore from antiquity.”

Death of Unicorn is in theaters now.