Rian Johnson, director of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, says one thing about the sequel “pissed” him off.
Johnson says he sees the movie very much as a stand-alone offering and wanted to just call it Glass Onion. He presumably faced pressured to add ‘A Knives Out Mystery’ to the official title.
Knives Out, starring Daniel Craig as detective Benoit Blanc, proved a big, whodunnit hit in 2019. Netflix paid around $ 450 million to secure two sequel movies. Johnson told The Atlantic each can be viewed alone without seeing the others.
“I’ve tried hard to make them self-contained,” Johnson said. “Honestly, I’m pissed off that we have A Knives Out Mystery in the title. You know? I want it to just be called Glass Onion. I get it, and I want everyone who liked the first movie to know this is next in the series, but also, the whole appeal to me is it’s a new novel off the shelf every time. But there’s a gravity of a thousand suns toward serialized storytelling.”
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How Has ‘Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery’ performed?
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery premiered on Netflix on December 23. The streamer, unusually, allowed it to play for a week in theaters back in November to help generate publicity and satisfy fans who demanded to see it on the big screen.
Craig reprises the role of Benoit Blanc. In this movie, audiences see him sharing his home with another man, played by Hugh Grant. Rian Johnson confirmed earlier in the year, during a Q&A after a film festival screening, that Blanc is queer.
Although you don’t see Craig and Grant on screen together at the same time, the director said he purposefully didn’t want to make a big thing about Blanc’s sexuality. He just wanted to present it in an unsensational, everyday fashion.
The movie has met with an overwhelmingly favorable reaction. It currently scores 93% with both critics and audiences on the aggregate review site Rotten Tomatoes.
Netflix has said Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery has racked up 82.1 million viewing hours in the week of 19-25 December. This put it in the number one most-watched slot on the streamer, even though it was only available for three of those days.
Johnson says he’s already started working on writing a third movie.
Related: Daniel Craig’s character is “obviously” queer and other surprises from the new ‘Knives Out’ movie
bachy
I liked Craig’s Benoit Blanc character and I thought the actors were game, but I didn’t like the writing on either the first or this new submission. It all starts off interesting enough, but when they throw in lots of unnecessary explosions, you know it’s a time-honored attempt to cover up flimsy plot and character development.
Kangol2
I was hoping he was going to say he was unhappy he didn’t just make Benoît Blanc an openly gay character for a moving appearing in 2022. What is Rian Johnson afraid of?
linedrive
Both movies are fantastic. My favorite things about them are the sharply-drawn characters and the multilayered plots. Amazing writing. Can’t wait for the next installment.
linedrive
One more thing… I remember a single explosion in each movie. Both moved the plot along and one was utterly pivotal. It proved the exact point one of the characters died trying to make.
Tallskin5
” ‘Glass Onion’ director says there’s one thing he’s unhappy with about the movie”
Would that one thing happen to be the stupid ending?
mala
I did not know his character was gay until I saw him wearing a handkerchief tied around his neck. I went OH…. That’s why Hugh Grant was at the door when he was having a bath. I thought Hugh’s character was the help.