Rian Johnson has announced that the previously untitled Knives Out sequel will be called Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. Daniel Craig will reprise his role as master detective Benoit Blanc in the follow-up to the hit Netflix film, including other cast members Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick and Madelyn Cline with Kate Hudson and Dave Bautista.
The sequel described as Detective Benoit Blanc travels to Greece to peel back the layers of a mystery involving a new cast of colorful suspects. The script is written by Johnson, will direct and also produce with Ram Bergman under their T-Street banner.
Johnson tweeted on Monday, “Something I love about Agatha Christie is how she never tread water creatively. I think there’s a misperception that her books use the same formula over and over, but fans know the opposite is true,”. “It wasn’t just settings or murder methods, she was constantly stretching the genre conceptually. Under the umbrella of the whodunnit, she wrote spy thrillers, proto-slasher horrors, serial killer hunts, gothic romances, psychological character studies, glam travelogues. When I made Knives Out, that’s what excited me about the prospect of making more mysteries with Daniel as Benoit Blanc — to emulate Christie and have every film be like a whole new book, with its own tone, ambition, reason for being… and (ta dah) title.”
About Knives Out was released in 2019 via Lionsgate, taking the box office at $311.4 million on a $40 million budget. Johnson earned a 2020 Oscar nomination for the Knives Out screenplay, he told The Hollywood Reporter that he began working on the script shortly after the first film was released. In a massive $469 million deal, Netflix won the rights for two sequels and a readymade franchise with the only contingencies of the deal were that Craig must star in the sequels and that each must have at least the budget of the 2019 movie.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery will be released this holiday season.