Alarm Bells Go Off: Rian Johnson Announces Next ‘Knives Out’ Sequel Title and Netflix Release Info
The first sequel to Knives Out borrowed its title, Glass Onion, from a Beatles song. The next sequel title ostensibly comes from the U2 catalog.
Rian Johnson, director of the first two Benoit Blanc mysteries, starring Daniel Craig as a southern sleuth who unravels thorny whodunits amongst the rich and powerful, announced Friday that the newest title in the franchise would be Wake Up Dead Man, A Knives Out Mystery.
In the short teaser video accompanying the clip, Craig, in character as Blanc, recounts the movies up to now. He says “In the beginning, the knives came out. Then behold, the glass was shattered. But my most dangerous case yet is about to be revealed.” Cue a shadowy version of a black coffin, before the Wake Up Dead Man title card appears.
Whatever its other provenance, “Wake Up Dead Man” was the title of a U2 song on their album Pop, released in 1997. See below for any clues that may tell you more about the upcoming film than Johnson has thus far.
As cagey as Johnson’s teaser tweet is, it’s a font of information compared to one from earlier Friday, which showed a Pokémon Go egg about to hatch. Later he tweeted “We’re about to go into production on the 3rd one, and I’m very, very excited to share the title, which gives a little hint of where it’s going.”
In a subsequent tweet, Johnson said “I love everything about whodunnits, but one of the things I love most is how malleable the genre is. There’s a whole tonal spectrum from Carr to Christie, and getting to explore that range is one of the most exciting things about making Benoit Blanc movies.”
There’s no specific release date yet, but the teaser indicates that Wake Up Dead Man is coming in 2025. Johnson returns as the writer and director of the latest film and will also produce with his partner Ram Bergman. So far the only known cast is Craig.
The film will be distributed by Netflix as part of Johnson’s two-sequel deal with the streamer, for which Johnson received $450 million. The first Knives Out feature was distributed by Lionsgate and grossed $312 million at the box office, while the second film had only a limited theatrical distribution that took in $13 million before the film was relegated to streaming.