See Daniel Craig With The New Suspects In First Official Look At Knives Out 2
Daniel Craig is back as Benoit Blanc!
This article is more than 2 years old
It’s been almost two and a half years since audiences first got to see Daniel Craig slam hard against type as the exceptionally verbose and deceptively cunning Benoit Blanc in Rian Johnson’s 2019 whodunnit Knives Out. Both Craig and Johnson are promised back for two more follow-ups for streaming releases on Netflix. Knives Out 2 is expected to be released on the streamer sometime this Fall, and thanks to a preview of this year’s original film offerings from Netflix, we finally have our first film preview of the sequel.
Netflix released their 2022 movie preview on Thursday, with looks at Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, the fantasy comedy-adventure Slumberland starring Jason Momoa, the animated adventure The Sea Beast, Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans’ upcoming thriller The Gray Man, and more. Compared to what we see of all those other projects, what we get of Knives Out 2 is teasingly brief. We see a row of characters — played by Kathryn Hahn (WandaVision), Jessica Henwick (The Matrix Resurrections), Kate Hudson (Almost Famous), Leslie Odom Jr. (Hamilton), Madelyn Cline (Stranger Things), and Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy)– boarding a ship. They each stop and turn to the camera, which pulls out to reveal Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc. You can watch the sizzle reel below.
We’ve set up the video to start at the Knives Out 2 preview, but if you don’t feel like watching, no worries. We’ve got screenshots for you. You can check them out below.
There are some big names missing from the preview. Ed Norton (Fight Club) and Janelle Monáe (Hidden Figures) will both be joining Daniel Craig and company for Knives Out 2, but they don’t appear in the preview. Ethan Hawke is also absent, though that isn’t much of a surprise. In a December interview, Hawke said he only has a cameo in Knives Out 2, though who knows? When it comes to a whodunnit, it’s probably a good idea for an actor to downplay his role. Either way, Hawke was seen in some shots with Bautista and Cline, strangely about to spray water in Bautista’s mouth.
The first Knives Out felt like exactly the kind of thing movie audiences didn’t even know they were waiting for. In an entertainment industry where certain filmmakers can’t stop blaming big franchises for “ruining” movies, Daniel Craig starred as a fast-talking sleuth in a whodunnit packed with incredible actors like the late Christopher Plummer, Michael Shannon, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, and Jamie Lee Curtis. Smart, funny, and thrilling, Knives Out was precisely what a lot of critics ordered, judging by its near perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes.
It is interesting to note that, apparently, Daniel Craig’s whodunnit series is sticking with “Knives Out.” In the first film, the title in part referred to the victim — a mystery novelist who had a now iconic knife sculpture (above) in his home. Of course, it also referred to the more symbolic knives all of the various suspects were ready to plunge into each other. Will writer/director Rian Johnson have a new physical manifestation of these knives for the follow-up? We’ll have to wait and see.
