Rian Johnson Is Excited About the Sequel to KNIVES OUT and the Future of the Franchise

The Oscars were on Sunday, and one of the more fun films in the running was director Rian Johnson’s Knives Out, which was up for best original screenplay. The film was a whodunit that followed a mysterious death within an eccentric family. The story had lots of twists and turns and a fantastic ensemble cast to boot, so when it was announced that we would be getting a sequel with Daniel Craig’s detective character, Benoit Blanc along for a brand new case to solve, I was pretty dang excited.

So, of course, the sequel that was recently greenlit was a topic of conversation on the red carpet at the show. Here’s what Johnson told Variety about the next film, and who he may like to cast:

“It’s going to be Daniel (Craig) playing Benoit Blanc, the detective. Other than that, all bets are off. It’s a totally new cast. I want everybody! Just point. Throw a rock on this red carpet and you’ll hit someone that I want in the movie.”

And if things go the way Johnson hopes, he will be able to have every actor he has ever dreamed of as a part of his future films, as he sees this character continuing to make several films in the future. He recently explained as much in an interview with Sirius XM Entertainment:

“In my mind, I don’t even think of it in terms of like a sequel… Ever since we started working on this I was like, look, if we can keep this going, the same way Agatha Christie wrote a bunch of Poirot novels. I mean, do that with Blanc and keep making more mysteries. Whole new cast, whole new location, whole new mystery. It’s just another Benoit Blanc mystery and it seems like there’s just so many different things you can do with it, you know? It seems like it’d be really fun.”

But he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself. He knows he has a lot of work to put in before he makes too many plans. He recently told EW:

“There’s a lot that has to happen: First and foremost, I have to write a script that’s worth a damn, so we’ll see. I don’t want to jump the gun, but it’s something I would love to do. First of all, because I had so much fun working with Daniel, and second, just because of the idea of doing the same thing that Agatha Christie did with Poirot and Miss Marple — just doing a whole different deal with Benoit Blanc as the detective. The possibilities of that seem endless in a way that’s really exciting.”

I’m definitely excited for another film in this franchise, and more after that. I thought Knives Out was so much fun, and it’s nice to just enjoy a night out at the movies like that. Are you looking forward to more films in this format?