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NEED TO KNOW
- Rian Johnson will soon release the Daniel Craig-led Wake Up Dead Man, the third film in the Knives Out murder mystery series
- Asked for an actor he’d love to work with in an upcoming installment, the writer-director picked Meryl Streep
- “I feel like you’d slot into a murder mystery very well,” Johnson said, addressing the Oscar winner
Could Meryl Streep be next up in the Knives Out cinematic universe?
“There are so many actors I haven’t worked with,” filmmaker Rian Johnson told IndieWire recently about casting his murder mystery franchise. “That’s one of the real treats of making these movies is you get to experience new actors and these big casts.”
Asked for his dream star in a future Knives Out installment opposite Daniel Craig’s detective Benoit Blanc, the filmmaker had a clear answer: “If you’re reading this, Meryl Streep, I feel like you’d slot into a murder mystery very well.”
Considering the esteemed actress only recently made her long-awaited debut on Saturday Night Live, anything is possible. “If Lorne [Michaels] can do it, then, goddamn, so can we,” quipped Johnson, 51.
Courtesy of Netflix
Wake Up Dead Man (in select theaters Nov. 26 and streaming on Netflix Dec. 12) features the return of Craig’s shrewd mystery-solver, alongside a new cast following the 2019 original and 2022’s Glass Onion. Josh O’Connor plays a conflicted priest in a parish full of secrets, alongside Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott and more.
Johnson acknowledged there’s “a big change” in tone between Glass Onion and Wake Up Dead Man, telling IndieWire, “anger is one of the things you kind of have to have to be motivated to sit down to write something. With this one, it’s all stuff I care very deeply about.”
Karwai Tang/WireImage
The new movie also ends Johnson’s two-picture deal with distributor Netflix; while it’s clear he and Craig, 57, want to continue filming Blanc’s adventures, no fourth film has been confirmed yet.
“For me, personally, these movies are working with Daniel,” said the director. “It’s a partnership. And the instant either one of us feels even slightly like not doing it, we’ll stop doing it.”
While Streep’s upcoming projects do not yet include a collaboration with Johnson, she has appeared in Hulu’s comedy Only Murders in the Building for the last three seasons. She’ll next star in The Devil Wears Prada 2 (in theaters May 1, 2026).
