We've known since 2021 that Rian Johnson planned not one but two sequels to the smash hit Knives Out, the star-studded murder mystery that's been a commercial and critical hit. But while Glass Onion landed in late 2022, plans for the third Benoit Blanc mystery hit an obstacle in the shape of the writers' strike, which paused development and production of tons of titles including the second sequel. So fans will be delighted to hear that the third movie is back in business… but the news also tells us that's quite a way off.
Rian Johnson is currently doing the promo rounds for Fair Play, an erotic thriller he produced alongside Ram Bergman, and in an interview with The Wrap he was asked about the status of the third Benoit Blanc film. "It's coming along," he said. "I obviously couldn't work during the strike, and now that it's over I'm diving in full force... I've got the premise, I've got the setting, I've got what the movie is in my head."
There's only one little detail preventing the film from going into production. "It's just a matter of writing the damn thing," Johnson said.
What do we know about Knives Out 3?
Very little, because almost all of it is currently in Johnson's head. We know that Daniel Craig is set to return as Benoit Blanc, and that's pretty much it: until the script is written there's no production and no release date. Johnson has previously spoken about how tough it is to write whodunnits – he said in 2022 that "a hundred times a day, you'll see an actor coming towards you and you'll see in their eye they have a question... you think they're going to ask the question that reveals the inconsistency where this whole thing unravels" – and the success of the first two films adds a huge weight of expectation.
With the first Knives Out rated at 97% by the critics aggregated at Rotten Tomatoes, and the second achieving an almost-as-incredible 92%, that means some people's – ahem – knives will be out for the third outing in the series. According to Deadline Hollywood the second film was "the Aliens of the Knives Out universe, an exponential iteration of a great concept that by now knows its lead character inside out".
Hopefully Johnson hasn't read that one, because we all know what happened to the quality of the Alien franchise after that second movie.
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