“In the beginning, the knives came out. Then behold…the glass shattered. But my most dangerous case yet…is about to be revealed.”
And with those words from Daniel Craig’s erstwhile detective Benoit Blanc, the title of Rian Johnson’s new mystery is revealed to be Wake Up Dead Man. Johnson and Netflix made the announcement in a brief teaser video that doesn’t give us much other than those words from Craig, along with the image of a coffin in the background and “Daniel Craig returns as Benoit Blanc” followed by the year, “2025.”
Johnson helped reinvigorate interest in whodunnits and film noir in 2019 with Knives Out, a film that earned more than $300M at the box office. It was a shock when Netflix swooped in to acquire the franchise before the sequel, 2022’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, which earned Johnson an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Other than this being the third film that Johnson has named after a pop song, what does the title Wake Up Dead Man tell us? Nothing that I can see, other than a coffin is probably going to be involved somehow, and there’s likely to be someone in it.
As for the cast, it’s sure top be another star-studded ensemble surrounding Craig. I’m curious what revelations there might be about Benoit Blanc, as Glass Onion gave us a look at his personal life. You don’t think it might be Blanc who ends up in that casket, do you?
