Knives Out sequels: Netflix closing huge deal with Rian Johnson for two more

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Here's a twist that I'd imagine most of us didn't see coming — Deadline has reported that Netflix is closing a deal with Rian Johnson to direct two sequels to his whodunit thriller Knives Out. Johnson has already written the sequels and will be producing with his partner Ram Bergman, and Daniel Craig will also be reprising his role of Benoit Blanc. Sources told Deadline that the deal is expected to be somewhere in the realm of $400-$450 million, which isn't exactly a small chunk of change.

A sequel to Knives Out has been a given since the success of the first film, but as the original was acquired in a single picture deal by MRC, who then distributed through Lionsgate, Rian Johnson and Ram Bergman were free to shop their sequel(s) to the highest bidder. In addition to Netflix, Deadline says that both Apple and Amazon were keen on snagging the project, but few can beat Netflix when it comes to sheer money. Production on the first Knives Out sequel is expected to start on June 28th in Greece, and we'll likely hear some casting news fairly soon.

Although the sequel will obviously find Detective Benoit Blanc tackling another mystery, Rian Johnson has previously teased that we shouldn't expect more of the same for the sequel. "The same way Agatha Christie wrote a bunch of Poirot novels," Rian Johnson said, "we can do that with Blanc and keep making new mysteries, you know, whole new cast, whole new location, whole new mystery, it's just another Beniot Blanc mystery. There's so many different things you could do with it." Johnson continued: "You look at Agatha Christie's books for example, it's not like every single one is a mansion, and a family, and a library, and a detective. Besides settings, she also explored a bunch of different sub-genres, And Then They Were None is essentially a slasher film, it's basically a horror movie; The ABC Murders is kind of like a proto-serial killer movie in a way. She found a very different narrative way into each of them."