Another ‘Knives Out’ makes another raucous premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival

TORONTO AP For the third time the knives were out at the Toronto International Film Festival Rian Johnson on Saturday night premiered the third movie in his whodunit series Wake Up Dead Man A Knives Out Mystery Like the previous two movies Knives Out and Glass Onion Johnson brought a cavalcade of stars to Toronto s Princess of Wales Theatre for what was easily the hottest ticket of the festival This is my favorite place to be in the world revealed Johnson recalling the similar TIFF first weekend premieres of his first two mysteries Wake Up Dead Man is arguably Johnson s darkest the majority intricate and bulk star-studded Knives Out mystery yet It includes plenty of the quips that have characterized the first two movies there are Star Wars and Scooby Doo references but the film is also more ambitiously existential Daniel Craig s Benoit Blanc returns for a murder event involving a local church with themes of truth lies and grace threaded throughout Josh O Connor stars a young priest named Jud Duplenticy with Josh Brolin as the Monsignor and Glenn Close as a devout parishioner The cast also includes Mila Kunis Jeremy Renner Daryl McCormack Andrew Scott Kerry Washington Thomas Haden Church and Cailee Spaeny The first one was kind of a cozy Agatha Christie family mystery The second one was a big blow-out vacation mystery And with this third one we re going back to the roots of the genre Johnson declared And the roots of genre authentically lie in Edgar Allan Poe A little gothic We re going to go by way of Poe into various John Dickson Carr We re going to veer into particular G K Chesterton with the Father Brown mysteries And we re going to go back to church After the screening the cast spoke about their elation at being inducted into Johnson s Knives Out ensembles Renner commented it was like winning the lottery Washington compared it to an all-star squad Putting this multiple stars into one film is literally like herding cats noted a beaming Craig After the first Knives Out was published in by Lionsgate grossing million worldwide Netflix scooped up the sequels in a million package Though Netflix has prioritized its streaming platform over theatrical it gave Glass Onion Knives Out a run in theaters in including the biggest chains AMC Regal and Cinemark Though much smaller than a traditional theatrical opening big productions typically launch in to theaters the movie was estimated to gross million in its first week Wake Up Dead Man will open in select theaters Nov for a two-week run before it begins streaming on Dec Source