Remarkably Bright Creatures Trailer and Poster Unveiled
Netflix has unveiled the official trailer and poster for Remarkably Bright Creatures, based on Shelby Van Pelt’s New York Times bestselling novel. The film adaptation debuts on Netflix on May 8, 2026.
Directed by Olivia Newman, Remarkably Bright Creatures follows Tova (Sally Field), a lonely widow who finds joy again when she forms an unlikely bond with a giant Pacific octopus (voiced by Alfred Molina) at the aquarium where she works, and a wayward young man, Cameron (Lewis Pullman), who comes to town in search of family.
Together, they uncover a mystery that leads them to a life-changing discovery and restores their sense of wonder. The cast also includes Colm Meaney, Joan Chen, Kathy Baker, Beth Grant, and Sofia Black D’Elia.
Van Pelt previously told the Netflix blog Tudum that the idea for Marcellus came from a YouTube rabbit hole and a fiction-writing exercise that led to the voice of an intelligent octopus stuck in captivity, and that she built the human characters around Marcellus.
“One of the places where I was able to find a really good character was on YouTube, watching videos of naughty octopuses that were escaping from their enclosures, or just getting up to antics in aquariums,” she said. “I remember thinking that would be such a fun voice to write, such a fun character to harness. The character of Marcellus came out of a little vignette that I wrote in a continuing education class.”
Marcellus needed human characters to ground the story in the real world, which is where Tova — based on Van Pelt’s own maternal grandmother — and Cameron — inspired by events throughout the author’s life — came in to play.
“Beyond Marcellus, Remarkably Bright Creatures is a story of love and grief,” Van Pelt added. “Those are two emotions that everyone who walks this planet feels at some point, so the themes are very widely resonant. There’s just a wide range of ages and generations and characters that people can enjoy together.”
Olivia Newman wrote the script with John Whittington. The producers include Bryan Unkeless, Peter Craig, and David Levine. The executive producers include Alyssa Rodrigues, Erika Hampson, Olivia Newman, Shelby Van Pelt, Tony Lipp, and Alisa Tager.
