The biggest rule of a Knives Out mystery is, don’t expect the same thing as the last Knives Out mystery. The sun-soaked Glass Onion was a tonal swit
The biggest rule of a Knives Out mystery is, don’t expect the same thing as the last Knives Out mystery. The sun-soaked Glass Onion was a tonal switch-up from the autumnal family affair of Knives Out. And so, the upcoming Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery will mark a similarly significant pivot from Rian Johnson’s last outing – a darker, Gothic-toned tale nodding to Edgar Allan Poe and Washington Irving, swapping the private Greek island setting for a pastoral New England town, where everyone’s faith is about to be tested. Into it all enters Daniel Craig’s detective Benoit Blanc, facing a case that’ll challenge him like never before, Johnson tells Empire.
As the first teaser made clear, there’s a religious slant to this third outing for Blanc, as a seemingly divine murder challenges the local churchgoing community. “It’s centred around the church, and all the suspects are regulars in the parish,” Johnson teases, speaking to Empire in The Running Man issue. With the writer-director taking inspiration from G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown mysteries and John Dickson Carr’s brainteasing logic puzzles, Blanc will have to sort fact from fiction. “Blanc is seeing it as, ‘It’s just a murder, I can solve this.’ The way the murder presents itself is the opposite of that,” says Johnson of the case. “It’s framed as an impossible thing that could never have happened, almost miraculous in nature. And Blanc as the rationalist is coming in to do what he does, and prove that wrong.”
Where Knives Out saw Blanc work alongside Ana de Armas’ Marta, and Glass Onion teamed him up with Janelle Monáe’s Helen, this time our intrepid investigator will be looking for clues with Josh O’Connor’s Father Jud. “He ends up partnering with Blanc on solving this mystery; it’s very much [Jud’s] journey,” says Johnson. But there’s more dramatic meat for Blanc this time too. “He has the biggest personal journey in this one. Benoit has to engage with [the mystery] in a different way. He’s in a very different place than in the previous two films. Daniel and I had a lot of fun thinking about where Blanc is at in his life. And I think he’s going through some shit!” Get ready for some divine intervention.
Read Empire‘s full Wake Up Dead Man story – with Rian Johnson teasing his third Knives Out mystery – in The Running Man issue, on sale Thursday 28 August. Pre-order a copy online here. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery opens the BFI London Film Festival on 8 October, and streams on Netflix from 12 December.
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