Wake Up Dead Man is somehow already filming
Rian Johnson shared a first look image of a shaggy Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc today
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It seems like Benoit Blanc might have let himself go a bit after (spoiler alert!) bearing witness to the destruction of the Mona Lisa at the end of Glass Onion. Rian Johnson shared a first look of Daniel Craig in costume as the usually prim and proper Southern detective for Wake Up Dead Man—the upcoming third installment in the Knives Out series—today, and there’s one major notable difference for the character.
That’s right: it’s tough out there these days, and apparently even premiere detective Benoit Blanc doesn’t have money for a proper haircut anymore. Now, we still don’t know anything about the actual plot of Wake Up Dead Man, other than the fact that it’s supposedly Blanc’s “most dangerous case yet,” according to a short teaser released by Netflix. Maybe it’s set in the past. Maybe Blanc is infiltrating and investigating the cast of a play after one of their company is murdered and the hair isn’t real at all, which would also fit with the title card’s vaguely gothic styling. We probably won’t know for a while.
What we do know from the same post is that Wake Up Dead Man has officially started filming, mere days after wrapping up one of the most star-studded and wide-ranging casting rollouts since everyone in Hollywood became a Barbie in 2022. Considering just how much this film has already been publicized, it wouldn’t be surprising if we got similar photos of Daniel Craig’s new co-stars in their own unexpected wigs over the next few weeks or even days. He’ll be joined in the 2025 film by Josh O’Connor, Cailee Spaeny, Andrew Scott, Kerry Washington, Jeremy Renner, Mila Kunis, Josh Brolin, Thomas Haden Church, Daryl McCormack, and Glenn Close.
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I’m rooting for this one. The cast of KO 2 was great, loved Janelle Monae, Bautista, Hugh Grant, etc., but the scale and the less personal feel of the mystery took me out of it. I want something much more hermetic, like a true classic whodunnit. A pressure cooker. I almost feel like the bigger budgets are keeping Johnson from being the clever, resourceful, character-focused creator he is deep down.
FWIW a lot of casting decisions are announced up to months after contracts have been signed.
It’s slightly different for these movies, at least it was for the first one. These parts don’t take more than a few weeks of shooting for most of the cast members. It’s a matter of who has some space in their schedule, as Johnson and the casting director have three or four names lined up, in case their first pick would say no. Casting for Knives Out was fast. “Do you want to spend six weeks in Boston, with shooting happening mostly in a single place, in an ensemble film starring Daniel Craig? Please answer ASAP.” Johnson or the producer said that the casting process for the other parts would go surprisingly fast as actors don’t love to have long gaps between parts, and it was hard for them to say no, even if they weren’t getting millions.For Glass Onion, there was a different incentive, as the cast would spend two months with their family by the sea in Greece in the middle of the pandemic.
Glass Onion definitely felt like it was fun for the cast. Less so for the audience.
> “Do you want to spend six weeks in Boston, with shooting happening mostly in a single place, in an ensemble film starring Daniel Craig? Please answer ASAP.”
Yes please.
It feels like many of these casting announcements arwe made about 2 months into shooting, and the next thing you hear is that shooting has wrapped and it’ll be out in three months.
Two possiblities for the plot of the latest Benoit Blanc Mystery:1) A psychopathic villian has released a chemical into all makeup and grooming products that will kill the user, leaving their faces frozen in a smile; or 2) Benoit Blank is taking on a special executive for counter-intelligence, terrorism, revenge and extortion and must disguise himself so that the leader’s cat doesn’t recognize him.
1) is already the plot to the Halle Berry Catwoman.
Huh, I didn’t realise the makers of ‘Catwoman’ had just stolen the plot of the original ‘Batman’. I guess that saves time.
It’s slightly different, the villain isn’t actually planning on freezing everyone’s faces in a grin, she just doesn’t care when she finds out her product is defective. It’s an evil CEO story, not a Joker thing.
Actually, it is the plot of the original Burton Batman, and the Nicholson Joker’s plan on revenge against Gotham: New and improved Joker products! With a new secret ingredient: Smylex.. . . I now do what other people only dream. I make art until someone dies. See? I am the world’s first fully functioning homicidal artist.
…so that’s not James May?
I guess he won’t be coming onto the show then.
Detective Slow
I really liked the first one – was a lot of fun – but the second one was just kind of ok. It required that the murderer was a moron and that there was a twin sister that nobody knew about. Was just less satisfying than the first one. Here’s hoping for a return to form for the third.
second one was also maybe a shade ‘too online’. i feel like a lot of those jokes and references were on borrowed time even by initial release.
Yeah, the second one was a disappointment. Forced jokes and it dragged. It was all about Benoit Blanc for me. Cynical Me says that the third one will kill even that aspect for me, but Non-Cynical Me is telling her to shut up and go into this one with slightly higher hopes.
Assuming they make more of these, I’m thinking the next one should feature a goth Daniel Craig.