Knives Out may get lots of sequels, but absolutely no prequels from Rian Johnson
Rian Johnson says a Knives Out prequel focusing on Benoit Blanc will only happen when he's "dead and gone"
Aux News Knives Out
Rian Johnson has indicated he will gladly spend the rest of his life writing and directing Knives Out whodunnits for Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig). Consequently, the audience may get to know Blanc quite well over the years—with Glass Onion, we’ve already learned some juicy details about his home life. But Johnson is adamant about maintaining some of the detective’s mystery, which means he won’t be making any prequels or origin stories.
In a new Uproxx interview, Johnson reluctantly admits that Blanc’s accent is “based mostly on Shelby Foote,” adding, “I can assume he’s from Mississippi.” He doesn’t have a detailed backstory sketched out for his leading man, though. “I think little tiny glimpses into that is fun for me. And it’s a trap that I find myself as a writer having to really push back against, just for myself,” Johnson explains. “Having Daniel Craig in that part, the temptation is to think that Blanc as a character is what’s interesting about these movies.”
Contrary to the tantalizing details he’s given us about Blanc as a person, the filmmaker maintains the crime solver is only “interesting in his function within the mystery.” He elaborates, “The mystery’s the thing. And [how] the detective is interesting is the way he solves his function within solving the mystery. And if we get glimpses beyond that, that’s great. But I feel like a little of that goes a very long way for me.”
He’s open to showing more of Blanc’s partner, provided that buzzy big-name actor wants to return, and showing more of Blanc’s life “if it makes sense.” However, he warns, “To me, I feel like I have to, with each one of these movies, just really focus my attention on the suspects, and the mystery, and the murder. And making sure that’s what drives the audience’s interest and not taking my eye off the ball. And that honestly takes all my energy and all my attention making that work.”
Blanc’s backstory, to Johnson, would be a distraction from the mystery. And a prequel about a young Benoit learning his craft just wouldn’t be worth it: “Sorry,” Johnson says. “Maybe, someday after I’m dead and gone, it’ll be streaming on a mind chip.”
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Johnson reluctantly admits that Blanc’s accent is “based mostly on Shelby Foote”I can only assume that’s Foghorn Leghorn’s pseudonym.
nah, he was the old timey southern historian in Ken Burn’s Civil War mini-series who provided the traditional (flawed) story of the civil war, and has some gigantic blindspots on confederate history.Foote could tell a story, but god damn did tha tman worship Nathan Bedford Forrest. (and just in general, have a sympathetic way of telling the story of the folks who tried to burn down the United States in the name of slavery.)
Honestly Craigs accent was the worst part of the whole movie, which overall was very enjoyable. But that super over the top southern accent was terrible.
It really bothered me at first but it seems like pop culture has been swept up by Knives Out fever so I’ve sorta tricked myself into forgetting about it at this point and when I watch Glass Onion around Christmas when I hear it I’ll just be like “ew.. oh yeah, whatever” and proceed. But it is a very, very silly accent and more so coming out of Craig’s mouth.
My dads a big fan of his Bond so we’ll see how he swallows it.
If I were bothered by accurate accent work, I think I’d hate virtually any media not using the neutral American accent/received pronunciation. The accent worked on me as intended: OTT to the point where it broke through the bottom of bad and went to hilarious again.
Well it wasn’t so much that it wasn’t accurate, there certainly ARE people in the south that sound like that. I don’t know while I liked the movie his accent was just to much lol. Heck I am form Texas, and while I don’t think I have a southern/country accent, my buddies wife really things I do lol. I always though I sounded a lot more neutral than many of the folks here.
I lived in Europe for like twenty years, and while I’m pretty sure I kept with the neutral American accent, some of my friends back home swore I had more of a Euro accent for some reason. I never got that. Occasionally I’d use Euro inflection but having codeswitched for the better part of my life with the rest of my family I figured I was still using neutral American when talking with them. Maybe they were just hearing what they were listening for rather than what was.
Could be, and frankly we really hear ourselves different than other people do. It’s just funny she said I had a Texas accent, as I don’t have any of that twang lol, but the again she’s from Minnesota and you can really tell her accent.
I don’t now how you’d live in Europe for twenty years and not develop an accent. If I visit Texas for a week, I start to pick it up. I’ve sometimes picked up very slight accents and mannerisms while reading a book.
Considering how many accents I’d have picked up (international city, people from multiple continents) and how much American TV I consume, I don’t think it’d be hard to reject other accents in favor of the neutral US.
I think Craig’s ridiculous accent is part of the appeal of this franchise. We all know he doesn’t really sound like that, and in fact nobody really sounds like that, but he’s having so much fun in character that it makes everything around him more fun. It also establishes a kind of hyperreality that causes all the colorful murder suspect characters to seem more believable by comparison.I agree with Johnson that if they ever try to explain the accent, by telling us that he moved from Chester, England to the Mississippi bayou when he was 9, the Blanc character would lose all his mystique.
Yeah I mean the only time I ever really hear someone like that, granted I am from Texas, and not wherever that accent is suppposed to be from I assume like the Carolinas or somewhere around there, is when they are purposefully playing it up.
After traveling around the South and various small-town Appalachian areas for over a decade, I’m wary of thinking “nobody really sounds like that,” when it comes to southern accents. Because no matter how ridiculous and made-up sounding a southern accent might be, chances are there’s SOME place where they sound EXACTLY like that.
Now I’m picturing one specific town in Mississippi where everyone sounds *exactly* like Daniel Craig in the Knives Out movies, and it turns out he’s doing the most startling impersonation of an accent in cinema history.
Yeah, he’s cartoonish by design and it’s great.
I think Craig’s ridiculous accent is part of the appeal of this franchise
Absolutely right. (And I love the idea that it’s based on Shelby Foote.)I never thought we were supposed to take Blanc or even much of Knives Out seriously. It’s a comedy mystery, well written and the actors all seem to be having a blast.
Yeah, I’ve always just assumed the accent is supposed to be part of the gag. Like Columbo acting rumpled and confused, or Monk’s OCD, it’s supposed to be an affectation that distracts everyone from the fact that he’s the smartest guy in the room.
Think it;s like Poirot’s mustache. It’s comical and disarming. People underestimate him right away which puts him on a better footing
I like to believe the prequel to Knives Out is literally James Bond. Then he settles in the United States, adopts an accent, and thinks, “This is better.”
That’d make sense if he wasn’t the only dead James Bond to exist.
Wait, James Bonds are draculas!?
Why you askin’ me when the real Timothy Dalton is just below. Though I’m surprised that Vampire James Bond doesn’t exist yet. literally all you have to do is write a James Bond film but occasionally he y’know nibbles on a person, y’know he kinda necks a neck or two.
There’s Hamish Bond, in Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula series.
Oh I must check that out then.
“I’ll have a bag of O positive, shaken, not stirred.”
Almost. James Bond is a Time Lord.
Every time Rian Johnson talks about making a new movie I feel like I’m being threatened. Please don’t do it Rian.
What are some filmmakers that you like? That might be an interesting thing to talk about, rather than piling onto a 5-year old garbage fire of toxic Star Wars fandom.¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Out of all the shitty filmmakers in Hollywood, you’ve got a bone to pick with this guy? Lol. Ok.
obviously his films are extremely bad. But also, on a personal level he is an annoying, sniveling twitter worm whose fans are some of the lamest people online. He is uniquely awful figure in the culture right now!
Timothy Dalton would never say that.
You didn’t answer the question
What are some good movies? Let’s put your taste in the hot seat. Or are you scared we’ll be mean?
Okay, sunshine, maybe have a cookie and a nap and then you’ll feel better.
now there’s some top shelf cinematic criticism right there…
Ok, but hear me out: not a prequel, but a period piece set in gilded age London, or inter-war Paris, or Medici Florence and Benoit Blanc is there to solve a mystery. It isn’t a time travel story or a dream or anything like that, just Daniel Craig solving a mystery with a goofy accent in another era with absolutely no time given to explanation.
Good. Prequels are almost always the worst form of storytelling.
Saw Glass Onion at a preview screening last night— I don’t know if I prefer it to the first, but goddamn it is a good time. It’s far more gonzo than Knives Out, but tonally of a piece, which it needs to be given some of the goofy twists it foists on the audience. All the stars are great and Johnson’s nested/fractal plotting is such a treat. As a recurring revenge fantasy against the Worst of America, it’s a great franchise and looking forward to more.
Thank you, Mr. Ryan.