'Knives Out' Footage Showcases Rian Johnson's Mystery Movie Follow-Up To 'The Last Jedi' [CinemaCon 2019]
Rian Johnson is following up Star Wars: The Last Jedi with Knives Out, a star-studded mystery movie that released its first footage to the crowd at CinemaCon. According to Johnson himself, Knives Out is a tribute to the locked-room mysteries of Agatha Christie, with Daniel Craig's Detective Benoit Blanc meant to evoke Christie's Hercule Poirot.
Ready to piece together the clues and solve the Knives Out footage reaction mystery? To make Knives Out, Rian Johnson has assembled one of the coolest casts in recent memory: Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Lakeith Stanfield, Michael Shannon, Ana de Armas, Don Johnson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette and Christopher Plummer.
"I had a blast, man, that was so much fun," Michael Shannon told /Film. "It's a murder-mystery movie, and I've never done one of those, you know, good old-fashioned kind of Agatha Christie-type things with a big cast. All the characters are kind of eccentric and whatnot. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Also, Rian is a super, super sweet guy."
Director Rian Johnson was on hand at CinemaCon to present footage from the MRC-produced film, telling the crowd he wanted to take everything he loved "about an Agatha Christie story, mashed-up with a Hitchcock thriller and an all-star cast, set it in modern America." The clip was set in a big mansion, as most Agatha Christe-style mysteries are. A family has gathered to celebrate their father's birthday, but the festivities are cut-short when the father is murdered.
Enter two cops, played by Daniel Craig and Lakeith Stanfield, asking the family if they can stay until the investigation is done. Added bonus: Craig is using a Southern accent. Michael Shannon's character is furious for the suggestion that one of the family members would be involved in the crime. But Chris Evans, another member of the family, tells his relatives to "eat shit."
From here we get a montage showing off the ensemble cast, along with a shot of a spider on a woman's face, a Molotov cocktail thrown through a window, and Craig dramatically saying, "I suspect foul play!" Here, Craig flips a coin, and says: "This is a twisted web and we are not finished untangling it, not yet."
Everything here looked great, full of visual style and dialogue that popped. It looks like Rian Johnson has another winner on his hands.
Knives Out opens November 27, 2019.