Before writer/director Mark Anthony Green pivoted to filmmaking, he was an editor at GQ Magazine — he knows the world of celebrity journalism and its opulent press junkets, which provides the setting for his directorial debut,

In the new horror movie “Opus,” we are introduced to Alfred Moretti, the biggest pop star of the ’90s, with 38 No. 1 hits and albums as big as “Thriller,” “Hotel California” and “Nebraska.”

Dorchester’s Ayo Edebiri plays a young journalist who’s invited to the desert compound of Malkovich’s cultish character, Moretti.

"What he said several times was that he didn't think that I was going to be able to do it,” writer-director Mark Anthony Green recalls.