Knives Out 2 wraps

Benoit Blanc is leaving the shores of Greece.

Rian Johnson, the writer/director of Knives Out and its forthcoming sequels, has completed filming in Greece for Knives Out 2, or whatever the next Daniel Craig murder mystery installment will eventually be called. Johnson shared a photo from the film’s set and explained that production on his new movie is halfway finished, and one of the project’s many stars said the group is moving on to another location.

An infinity pool, Italian cypress trees, a lovely sunset…what more could you ask for? How about a dead body (or maybe more than one)?

Johnson, the filmmaker behind movies like Brick, Looper, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and 2019’s ensemble murder mystery hit Knives Out, is now “just about halfway” through production on his follow-up, which features Daniel Craig returning to play the Southern-fried investigator Benoit Blanc. Joining him for this overseas adventure will be Dave Bautista (Spectre, Guardians of the Galaxy), Kate Hudson (Almost Famous, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days), Edward Norton (Rounders, Primal Fear), Janelle Monáe (Hidden Figures, Antebellum), Kathryn Hahn (Step Brothers, WandaVision), Leslie Odom Jr. (Hamilton, Murder on the Orient Express), Madelyn Cline (Outer Banks), Jessica Henwick (Game of Thrones, Iron Fist), and Ethan Hawke (Before Sunrise, Dead Poets Society).

In an Instagram post of her own, Hudson teased the crew was heading to “the next location,” but it seems likely that the production is simply moving from filming exteriors in Greece to shooting interior scenes in a sound stage somewhere.

This Won’t Be a Traditional Sequel

Plot details for Knives Out 2 are still scarce. But we know Johnson is heavily influenced by Agatha Christie, one of the biggest mystery novelists of all time who was responsible for a series of books centered on a Belgian detective named Hercule Poirot who traveled the world and often found himself embroiled in a new case everywhere he went. As the cast list for this new film indicates, Johnson is taking a page out of that playbook and whisking Blanc off to the other side of the world, where his character gets caught up in a totally new case.

One of the best things about the Poirot books is that Poirot himself takes a backseat in the story until he gives a grand speech at the end laying out how he solved the case. You don’t ever get to know too much about him as a person. Instead, the focus is on the potential suspects directly involved in each new mystery. Johnson said last year that audiences would not be learning much about Blanc’s backstory because he wants to spend all of his available real estate filling out his mystery, so don’t expect any big callbacks to the previous movie or glimpses into Blanc’s past.

Knives Out 2 and 3 (again, that’s not what they’ll be called) will be heading directly to Netflix.

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