The name’s Blanc, Benoit Blanc.
Daniel Craig kicked off the 2025 BFI London Film Festival in style on Wednesday night at the star-studded premiere of Rian Johnson‘s latest “Knives Out” caper, “Wake Up Dead Man.”
Director Johnson took to the stage at Royal Festival Hall to introduce the film and was joined by stars Craig, Daryl McCormack, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Cailee Spaeny, Kerry Washington and Andrew Scott. Josh O’Connor and Glenn Close also star, but weren’t in attendance.
Craig flexed his signature charm when festival director Kristy Matheson asked him if he dives deeper into his character, the drawling detective Benoit Blanc, while preparing for each “Knives Out” installment. “First of all, I just want to say thank you for having us,” he said with a smile, before adding, “No is the answer,” resulting in chuckles from the crowd.
“I mean, look at this cast,” added Josh Brolin, who plays the main antagonist, an evil priest with an axe to grind. “Rian is an amazing writer and an amazing director, so when you get the call to do something like this — play the worst person that cinema has ever seen — you go, that’s right!”
The London audience — which included Greta Gerwig and Andrew Lloyd Webber — couldn’t stop laughing throughout the two-hour crime comedy, which follows Blanc latest case, this time revolving around a charismatic priest, Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, and his devout congregation. O’Connor plays priest-in-training with a dark past who threatens to interrupt Wicks’ power-hungry plans.
“Wake Up Dead Man” world premiered at Toronto Film Festival in September, where it received a rapturous response. “You get called to be on a team of like all-stars, and you just sit there and watch each other breathe life into these incredibly written characters,” Washington said at the premiere. “We were constantly in awe of each other, and inspiring each other, and goofing off, and trying to mess each other up. And it just was such a delight.”
The film received positive reviews out of TIFF, with Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman writing it may be the franchise’s sharpest entry yet. “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” is an enticingly clever and droll, nearly pitch-perfect piece of murder-mystery fun — a whodunit that lives up to the expectations set six years ago by ‘Knives Out,’” he wrote.
“Knives Out 3” will release in theaters on Nov. 26 before premiering on Netflix Dec. 12.
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