While he’s due to return to a galaxy far far away with a brand new trilogy, Rian Johnson is taking a small break from Star Wars after the split reaction to his controversial The Last Jedi. He’s going back to his roots, so to speak, with a mystery film that harkens back to his breakout debut with Brick, and fate has conspired to make Daniel Craig available to be his star.
With Bond 25 delayed for who knows how long while a new director is found, Craig has window of time to star in Johnson’s upcoming film, titled Knives Out. Deadline reports Johnson will attempt to sell the project while at TIFF, and having Craig on board should go a long way in making that happen. Not many details are known about it except that it will be a contemporary murder mystery done in a classic whodunit style in the Agatha Christie mode, since Deadline says Johnson “has been an Agatha Christie nut since his teens, sparking to her richly drawn characters and the twists and turns that drove her whodunits. For a decade, he has been framing in his mind how he would make his own murder mystery, and over the summer he scripted his contemporary version of the locked door mansion murder mystery.”
Johnson said on teaming up with Craig, “I have been a huge fan and always wanted to work with [Craig] and as I worked on the script, trying to get it right, Ram and I were wringing our hands over who could be the detective. Then, serendipitously, we heard Daniel might have a small window, and it worked out. He’s an actor of extraordinary range, and we are looking forward to the fun of finding that modern detective, and collaborating with Daniel on creating a new Poirot.”
Shooting on Knives Out will begin in November so that both Johnson and Craig can get this done before they return to the realm of blockbuster franchises.
