‘Glass Onion’: Netflix’s ‘Knives Out’ Sequel Reveals First Cast Photo, Premiere Date
Detective Benoit Blanc is back in the first look at Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. Premiering on Netflix and in select theaters on December 23, the first cast photo has been released from the highly anticipated Knives Out sequel. In the pic, below, Daniel Craig stands at one end of a long table at which Janelle Monáe, Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick, and Madelyn Cline are sat. Edward Norton stands at the opposite end, looking rather puzzled.
In the follow up to Knives Out, Detective Benoit Blanc travels to Greece to peel back the layers of a mystery involving a new cast of colorful suspects. Norton’s Miles Bron is the tech billionaire who invites a group of friends to a getaway on his private island in Greece, but then someone winds up dead. Not the best vacation vibe. That’s when Craig’s southern sleuth comes in. Director and writer Rian Johnson (pictured on set with Monáe, above) told Netlfix’s Tudum that Glass Onion shows Benoit as more of the protagonist than the quasi antagonist like he was in the first film.
“You definitely get to know him a little bit better,” the director said. “In the first one, because of the way it was structured, Marta, Ana de Armas’ character, was very much the protagonist. In a big way, Blanc was the threat. He was almost the antagonist in terms of just the story structure, because you were worried, even as they got closer, that he was going to catch her and he was going to have to turn her over at the end. So Blanc was always outside of the sphere of our protagonist and was a little bit more of an enigma in the first movie. Whereas, in this one, Blanc gets an invitation to come to this murder mystery on this island. We’re very much meeting these people and getting into this world through his eyes.”
Here, see Craig’s detective face off with the full Glass Onion cast.
Netflix
Glass Onion is more of the second installment in an anthology series than anything else, with Craig being the common denominator throughout. Don’t expect to see Knives Out characters or continued plot here; Glass Onion is an all new story with an all new mystery. The film’s title was the product of a search through the music on Johnson’s phone. And peeling back the layers of an onion is quite a fitting metaphor for solving a mystery.
“I’m always fishing for something fun that Blanc can grab onto as an overwrought metaphor that he can beat to death,” he said. “This is all in plain sight from the very start. So, the idea of glass came to me, something that’s clear. I’ll be very honest. I literally got out my iPhone and searched my music library with the word ‘glass.’ There’s got to be some good glass songs. I was like, ‘Oh, is it a glass fortress? Is it a glass castle? Is it a glass man?’ The first thing that came up, because I’m a huge Beatles fan, is ‘Glass Onion.’”
While Agatha Christie’s novels are one of Johnson’s main inspirations for this now franchise, Johnson was also heavily influenced by the 1973 film The Last of Sheila written by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins.
“There are absolutely some very clear inspirations that I took from it,” Johnson explained. “First of all, it’s structured around a group of friends, or frenemies, who all have a power dynamic with one of their successful friends. It begins with him sending an invitation for them to come and play this murder mystery game at this exotic locale. In The Last of Sheila, it’s on his yacht, and everything ends up going horribly wrong. That is essentially how Glass Onion begins.”
The film is written and directed by Johnson with Ram Bergman and Johnson serving as producers. Tom Karnowski executive produces.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Original Film, Premieres Friday, December 23, Netflix
