Back in November 2019 BC (as in, before coronavirus), we got to experience the delightful whodunit Knives Out. Directed by Rian Johnson, the film starred a fruitily-accented Daniel Craig as Detective Benoit Blanc, who sought to get to the bottom of a seemingly impossible death. With its razor-sharp script and array of sharp performances, including Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis and Toni Collette, it both honoured and subverted the spirit of genre master Agatha Christie.
Crucially, Knives Out was also a box office success, grossing $309 million worldwide against its relatively small $40 million budget. That's already hastened talk of a sequel, with Craig (clearly looking ahead to his post-James Bond future) set to return as the Foghorn Leghorn-riffing Blanc. And Johnson has said that he plans to wipe the slate clean as far as the supporting cast is returned. In fact, he's not really sure if it is a follow-up at all.
“It’s been such a mindf**k," Johnson is quoted as saying in Interview Magazine, "because I sat on the idea for the first one for 10 years. And with this one, I’m starting with a blank page. It’s not really a Knives Out sequel. I need to come up with a title for it so I can stop calling it The Knives Out Sequel because it’s just Daniel Craig as the same detective with a totally new cast.”
Sadly, that probably means no return for Ana De Armas' noble Marta, the nurse whose inability to lie without vomiting exposed the culprit in the first movie. While we wait to see how Johnson can top that hilariously gross twist on the classic murder mystery, we can take comfort in distributor Lionsgate's plans for a Knives Out franchise.
So, which actors do you want to see Craig locking wits with in the Knives Out sequel?
