Knives Out 2 is Coming This Fall and We’re Ready
2019’s Knives Out, written and directed by Rian Johnson, is a critically-acclaimed film that grossed $311.4 million worldwide—so it’s no surprise that this mystery movie is getting a sequel. Did you love Knives Out and can’t wait to watch Knives Out 2? Here’s everything we know about Rian Johnson’s upcoming whodunnit film.
Knives Out is an Agatha Christie-inspired murder mystery film that follows private detective Benoit Blanc, played by Daniel Craig. Blanc is anonymously hired to investigate the mysterious murder of Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), a wealthy mystery novelist who died under suspicious circumstances after his 85th birthday party. The story includes a large ensemble cast of potential suspects – mostly Harlan’s relatives – played by Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, Katherine Langford, and Jaeden Martell. Blanc is assisted in his investigation by Detective Lieutenant Elliott, played by LaKeith Stanfield. The story is set primarily at Thrombey’s Massachusetts mansion.
“I’ll tell you, the truth is I had such a great time working with Daniel Craig and I had so much fun doing this on every level, from writing it to making it,” Johnson said in an interview for Uproxx in September 2019. “I’ve never really been interested in doing sequels, but this, the idea of doing more of these with Daniel as his character, is not sequels. It’s just what Agatha Christie did. It’s just coming up with a whole new mystery, a whole new location, all new cast, whole new mechanics of the appeal of a mystery and everything. It’d be a blast.”
Much like Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot mystery novels, Rian Johnson envisions each Knives Out story following detective Benoit Blanc as he investigates a different crime with a different cast of suspicious characters. Before Knives Out even premiered, Johnson had plans for a sequel. And now Netflix has purchased the rights for two Knives Out sequels in a $469 million deal, under the contingency that Daniel Craig must come back and star in both films.
Filming for Knives Out 2 began in June 2021 and continued over the course of a month on the island of Spetses, Greece. Principal photography continued outside of Greece and concluded in September. All filming officially wrapped September 13, 2021, and the movie is slated for a release in late 2022. Several crew members returned for the filming of the second Knives Out Film, including cinematographer Steve Yedlin, composer Nathan Johnson, and editor Bob Ducsay.
Joining Daniel Craig in the second film in the Knives Out series is a whole new star-studded cast, including Ethan Hawke, Dave Bautista, Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Kate Hudson, Jessica Henwick and Madelyn Cline. Craig has promised viewers can expect big things from this cast and this sequel. “Dare I say [the sequel is] better?” Craig said in an interview with Empire in October 2021. “We’ll see. I don’t want to tempt fate. It’s different, and that’s the amazing thing.”
Ahead of its release on Netflix in Fall 2022, you can expect Knives Out 2 to make its debut on the festival circuit, although no official announcements about which festivals have been made yet.
We can also expect a fresh new title for the upcoming sequel. While we’ve been referring to the film as Knives Out 2, Rian Johnson has said that this title is just a placeholder. In an interview with Digital Spy, Johnson said, “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.”
But what will the film be about? What’s the big mystery going to be? All of that is still very much under wraps. You’ll have to wait until the film’s official release date to get all the story details. We can’t wait!
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Emily Martin has a PhD in English from the University of Southern Mississippi. She’s a contributing editor at Book Riot and blogs/podcasts at Book Squad Goals.