Having officially completed his service to his country as James Bond in between the last two Knives Out mysteries, Daniel Craig should have very little in his way as writer-director Rian Johnson marches on with his murder-mystery franchise that seemingly has no end in sight.
Netflix just announced on Friday that a new chapter in the Benoit Blanc universe is coming in 2025, Wake Up Dead Man.
Benoit Blanc returns in his most dangerous case yet. pic.twitter.com/Y3IFryNNi4
— Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (@KnivesOut) May 24, 2024
Craig has killed it in this master detective role, starring in Johnson’s previous two films Knives Out and Glass Onion. As is the case with many film series, I prefer the original, but the more I think about its sequel, the more I remember how damn good it was. Johnson still probably has a lot of Star Wars fans bitter about what he did in The Last Jedi. However, that doesn’t seem to have slowed his momentum in building his own cinematic universe.
I guess I use “cinematic” loosely, because one downside of Netflix housing the Knives Out franchise is the lack of a wide theatrical release. The first movie came out in 2019 and was a massive hit, grossing almost $313 million on only a $40 million budget. The same budget was reported for Glass Onion. A limited theater release meant only $15 million at the box office.
It’s unclear how far along Wake Up Dead Man is. I’d assume Johnson has the script finished, and the latest massive ensemble cast will be announced very soon. If we go off the last two Knives Out entries, they both premiered in September at the Toronto Film Festival before hitting theaters in November (Glass Onion went to Netflix in December 2022). Seems reasonable to expect a similar timeline for Wake Up Dead Man, so unfortunately, since we’re not even halfway through 2024 yet, we’ll have quite a long wait before the movie drops.
Craig’s Blanc teases that Wake Up Dead Man is his most dangerous case yet, which is saying something. If you’ve read this far you surely don’t care about spoilers. The first flick had to do with the last will and testament of a prolific author; Glass Onion was about a reckless entrepreneur who wanted to rush out a radical, dangerous solution for sustainable energy. I wonder what could be more dangerous than the explosive latter scenario.
While I would like to see Johnson branch out a little more from Benoit Blanc in the coming years as far as movies he writes and directs, Wake Up Dead Man is easily one of my most anticipated films of 2025 already.
KNIVES OUT 3 is coming in 2025 and is officially titled "Wake Up Dead Man."
"I love everything about whodunnits, but one of the things I love most is how malleable the genre is," says Rian Johnson. "There’s a whole tonal spectrum from Carr to Christie, and getting to explore… pic.twitter.com/mokEnDdH9C
— Zack Sharf (@ZSharf) May 24, 2024
