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Tag: wake up dead man: a knives out mystery

  • The ‘Star Wars’ Gag in ‘Wake Up Dead Man’ Is Pure Rian Johnson

    If you’re looking for excellent 2025 releases to watch while you’re home for the holidays, look no further than Netflix. Warner Bros.’ (almost) new owner has several fantastic original films now streaming, from Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein and the George Clooney-starring Jay Kelly to Jyn Erso and Owen Lars (Felicity Jones and Joel Edgerton) in Train Dreams, as well as KPop Demon Hunters and more.

    The best of the bunch, though, might be Rian Johnson’s third Knives Out movie, Wake Up Dead Man. Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) returns to solve another murder, with a star-studded cast and more twists and turns than ever. It’s our favorite of the bunch, and part of that is a perfect Star Wars joke that comes about halfway through the film.

    We won’t spoil how the film ends, but this does involve a mid-movie reveal.

    About halfway through the film, we learn that Cy (Daryl McCormack) is the son of Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin). In a flashback, we watch the social media-savvy Cy tell his father about how they can use social media to make him into a celebrity. Possibly even the president. “Together we can build a real empire, as father and son,” Cy tells Wicks. We then cut to the present, where Father Jud (Josh O’Connor) says what the audience is thinking. “Like in Star Wars?” Cy then replies, “Yeah, exactly, like the Rebels.” And Jud gives him that look of, “I think you mean Empire, but we’ll let it go.”

    In the context of the film, the joke works because it’s funny and tells us a bit about Cy, Wicks’ plan, and Jud’s understanding. But it also works on another level.

    Before the Knives Out films, writer-director Rian Johnson made a little film called Star Wars: The Last Jedi. That film was, in some circles, wildly misinterpreted. People were mad that Luke Skywalker sacrificed himself, when that was the most Jedi thing he could have done. People were mad about the long scene at Canto Bight, when it was crucial to Finn’s journey. People were mad at Snoke being killed, when that was the exact type of bold storytelling that made The Empire Strikes Back everyone’s favorite Star Wars film. The list goes on and on.

    And so, Johnson putting in a joke about this man wildly misinterpreting Star Wars feels very pointed. Maybe even cathartic. Cy is an idiot, and, well, maybe Johnson feels similarly about other people, too. Or, maybe, Star Wars just works differently depending on who is watching it. Whatever the case, having such a quick aside become so layered is pure Rian Johnson.

    See that joke, and many others, in one of the best films of 2025, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, streaming on Netflix.

    Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

    Germain Lussier

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  • I love Benoit Blanc’s love for musical theatre | The Mary Sue

    It doesn’t feel hyperbolic to say that the Knives Out franchise has given us one of the decade’s best characters. Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc is a delightful enigma of a man, who we (and the team bringing him to life) learn more about with each new installment.

    The third title in Rian Johnson’s film saga, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, is finally on Netflix after its brief run in theaters, and it delivers a lot of new layers for Blanc. As people continue to debate about his hair and wardrobe choices, or his viewpoints on religion, there is one continued detail about him that I can’t get enough of: his love of musical theatre.

    ***Spoilers for Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery below!***

    The trend began with Blanc’s debut in 2019’s Knives Out, in a relatively-small moment that cuts the tension of the murder mystery. As Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas) deals with an emergency that she believes could further implicate her in the case, the film quickly cuts back to Blanc waiting patiently in her car. He is listening to music on his headphones — more specifically, “Losing My Mind” from Stephen Sondheim’s 1971 musical Follies — and singing from the top of his lungs, unaware that something bad is happening just feet away.

    Cut to 2022’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, and Blanc dealing with being depressed and bored during the height of COVID-19 lockdown. As he sits in the bathtub for weeks to pass the time, one of his hobbies includes playing Among Us (even though he’s not very good at it) with a group of celebrities on Zoom… including Sondheim himself.

    The Drama!

    And then there’s Wake Up Dead Man. Its first use of musical theatre emulates the same sort of cutaway gag as Knives Out, in a scene between Blanc and Reverend Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor). When Blanc deduces that Jud is innocent, and rushes to stop him from confessing to the police, he shoves him into his car and decides to drive to the house of the actual guilty party, Dr. Nat Sharp (Jeremy Renner). When he turns on the car, a CD briefly autoplays “Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat”, from none other than Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1981 musical Cats.

    Then, during the film’s third act, Blanc once again uses a recognizable musical number to stop Jud from confessing. While everyone is gathered in the church that is a major centerpiece of the film, Jud starts to assume guilt for the various deaths of the film… but is stopped by Blanc playing the church organ before he can utter a word. More specifically, he plays the titular musical motif from Webber’s 1986 musical The Phantom of the Opera.

    Back in 2019, Johnson revealed that the Follies needle drop was his attempt to pay homage to Sondheim, who was an “avowed mystery nut and puzzle nut.” (In addition to his musicals, Sondheim co-wrote the 1973 murder mystery film The Last of Sheila, which the Knives Out franchise has homaged multiple times over.) But as these films have evolved, the random nods to musical theatre have only gotten more endearing and unhinged. Wake Up Dead Man‘s Cats moment, in particular, being in such close proximity to bodies being found dissolved in acid is such a perfect beat of tonal dissonance.

    It makes sense, on so many levels, that Blanc would be a musical fan. In a lot of ways, a good musical theatre composition unfolds similarly to a puzzle, with different motivations and motifs leading audiences into places that they might not expect. It’s also safe to say that Blanc has a flair for the dramatic, electing to reveal the killer in the most grandiose and satisfying way, as opposed to right when he deduces it.

    He’s even unafraid to put on an act for the sake of the mystery, as evident by him scheming with Helen for the entirety of Glass Onion, and by his fake religious epiphany in Wake Up Dead Man, which allows the room to clear so the real killer can be revealed. It’s such a great detail that makes Blanc, with his witty one-liners and Foghorn Leghorn-esque accent, feel like even more of a human being. And it makes me eager to see what musical might get referenced in the inevitable Knives Out 4.

    (featured image: Netflix)

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    Jenna Anderson

    Jenna Anderson is the host of the Go Read Some Comics YouTube channel, as well as one of the hosts of the Phase Hero podcast. She has been writing professionally since 2017, but has been loving pop culture (and especially superhero comics) for her entire life. You can usually find her drinking a large iced coffee from Dunkin and talking about comics, female characters, and Taylor Swift at any given opportunity.

    Jenna Anderson

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  • Glenn Close on Playing a Scary Church Lady in ‘Wake Up Dead Man,’ Those ‘All’s Fair’ Reviews and Acting With Kim Kardashian: ‘She Always Was Prepared’

    Glenn Close is all too aware of how a certain strain of religious fundamentalism can turn toxic. When Close was 7 years old, her parents joined the Moral Re-Armament, a spiritual movement led by an American minister named Frank Buchman that she likens to a cult.

    “When I was little, we’d be ushered into this little man named Uncle Frank’s room, and you thought you were meeting God,” Close says. “I don’t think people join cults like that if they’re happy or if they’re whole people. Something’s missing in their lives.”

    Close drew on that experience to play Martha Delacroix, the right-hand woman to a fiery preacher, Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), in “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.” In the film, Martha wields her devotion like a cudgel, making sure that Wicks’ congregation stays in line.

    “I empathize with the side of Martha that’s been trying to be a good little soldier since she was just a young girl,” Close says. “She’s missed out on so much in life by taking care of Wicks.”

    As Martha, Close wears all-black outfits and a rigid scowl. But filming “Wake Up Dead Man” was a joyful experience, one that saw her bonding with Daniel Craig and the rest of the A-list ensemble on the London set. Instead of retreating to their trailers between scenes, the cast kicked back in one big tent.

    “There’d be a table of tea, coffee and some weird English candy,” Close says. “Jeremy Renner had a special chair because he was recovering from his [snowplow] accident. Andrew Scott, who was doing another movie at the time and was tired, would nap. And I would play backgammon with Mila Kunis or Josh O’Connor. There was lots of laughing.”

    At 78, Close is busier than ever. She’s on Zoom from Germany, where she’s filming “The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping.”

    “It’s huge,” she teases. “There’s all these extras and helicopters and chariots and horses.”

    And she recently joined the Ryan Murphy-verse, playing a wily divorce attorney in the campy Hulu drama “All’s Fair.” “I was intimidated,” she admits. “I’d never been in a Ryan movie or show. … I didn’t understand the tone for a while. I found it hard.”

    It was also her first time sharing the screen with Kim Kardashian, and Close came away impressed by the reality TV icon. They hung out during filming, with Kris Jenner organizing a boozy viewing party for the cast so Kardashian could finally see Close boil that bunny in “Fatal Attraction.”

    “What surprised me was Kim’s seriousness of intent,” Close says. “She always knew her lines. She never was late. She always was prepared. She had no pretensions that she was a great actress, but she was smart enough to have people around her who she could learn from. If she was a big ego or what I call a ‘life-is-too-short person,’ I would have been unhappy, but she’s not.”

    Critics, however, were merciless, savaging the show as loud, ludicrous and dull. Close believes reviewers failed to assess the series in its entirety.

    “I personally think that the first three episodes were the weakest,” she says. “That was a tough way to start. I’ve seen all nine episodes, and I think it actually adds up to something.”

    It may not have helped that many people have strong opinions about the first family of Calabasas. “The Kardashians would say this themselves, but not everybody likes them,” Close says. “They have an image.”

    Varietybrentlang

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  • Knives Out 3 Trailer Highlights ‘Impossible’ Mystery in Wake Up Dead Man

    Netflix has released a brand new trailer for Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, previewing the upcoming third film in the series and an “impossible” crime that Benoit Blanc will have to solve. It is set to release in theaters on November 26, 2025, and then later on Netflix on December 12, 2025.

    “Benoit Blanc returns for his most dangerous case yet in the third and darkest chapter of Rian Johnson’s murder mystery opus,” reads the film’s official synopsis. “When young priest Jud Duplenticy is sent to assist charismatic firebrand Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, it’s clear that all is not well in the pews. Wicks’s modest-but-devoted flock includes devout church lady Martha Delacroix, circumspect groundskeeper Samson Holt, tightly-wound lawyer Vera Draven, aspiring politician Cy Draven, town doctor Nat Sharp, best-selling author Lee Ross, and concert cellist Simone Vivane. After a sudden and seemingly impossible murder rocks the town, the lack of an obvious suspect prompts local police chief Geraldine Scott to join forces with renowned detective Benoit Blanc to unravel a mystery that defies all logic.”

    Check out the new Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery trailer below (watch other trailers):

    What happens in the Knives Out 3 trailer?

    The newest trailer opens up more about the story of the upcoming movie. After Jefferson Wicks is mysteriously killed, Josh O’Connor’s Reverend Jud Duplenticy is the prime suspect. It’s up to Benoit Blanc and a local police chief to try and figure out what happened, though, in what Blanc views as a nearly impossible crime.

    Much like past Knives Out films, Wake Up Dead Man features an all-star cast. Alongside Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc, the film also stars Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaney, Daryl McCormack, Thomas Haden Church, Jeffrey Wright, Annie Hamilton, James Faulkner, Bridget Everett, Noah Segan, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

    (Image Credit: Netflix)

    Anthony Nash

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  • The ‘Wake Up Dead Man’ trailer just took us to church | The Mary Sue

    Knives Out movies seem to come into our lives at times when we didn’t even know we needed them. Rian Johnson’s original 2019 film was for many (myself included) one of the last great theatrical experiences before the pandemic, bringing us a twisty mystery and a delicious villain turn from Chris Evans. 2022’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery immortalized a lot of the weirdness of those early pandemic years, with a new star-studded cast and plenty of jokes at Jared Leto’s expense.

    Now, it looks like the saga’s third film, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, will be bringing an entirely new energy into our lives. On Monday morning, Netflix released the first teaser trailer for the film, just days after its premiere (and rave reviews) at the Toronto International Film Festival.

    The teaser for Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery not only showcases Daniel Craig’s now-beloved turn as Detective Benoit Blanc, but some of the ensemble that will be joining him, including Glenn Close, Josh O’Connor, Andrew Scott, and Thomas Hayden Church. Jeremy Renner is also part of the fray, which does raise some questions given how heavily his fictional brand of hot sauce factored into Glass Onion, but I trust that Johnson will handle that conundrum in a fun way.

    A Most Dangerous Game?

    Perhaps most importantly, the trailer clues us into the mystery that will bring Blanc into the events of Wake Up Dead Man. On the surface, it appears to be the sudden and inexplainable death of Josh Brolin’s Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, after he walked into a (in Blanc’s words) “sealed concrete box” and was found dead mere seconds later. While there will surely be layers upon layers to this investigation, the early glimpses of it in the trailer immediately made me think of the monastery sequence in The Last of Sheila, the 1973 film that Johnson repeatedly cited as a major source of inspiration for Glass Onion.

    According to Netflix’s official description for Wake Up Dead Man, “Benoit Blanc (Craig) returns for his most dangerous case yet in the third and darkest chapter of Rian Johnson’s murder mystery opus. When young priest Jud Duplenticy (O’Connor) is sent to assist charismatic firebrand Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), it’s clear that all is not well in the pews. Wicks’ modest-but-devoted flock includes devout church lady Martha Delacroix (Close), circumspect groundskeeper Samson Holt (Church), tightly-wound lawyer Vera Draven, Esq. (Washington), aspiring politician Cy Draven (McCormack), town doctor Nat Sharp (Renner), best-selling author Lee Ross (Scott) and concert cellist Simone Vivane (Spaeny). After a sudden and seemingly impossible murder rocks the town, the lack of an obvious suspect prompts local police chief Geraldine Scott (Mila Kunis) to join forces with renowned detective Benoit Blanc to unravel a mystery that defies all logic.”

    Johnson wrote and directed Wake Up Dead Man, and produces the film alongside Ram Bergman and Katie McNeill. While it is the second of two Knives Out sequels greenlit under Netflix so far, both Johnson and Craig have indicated that they would love to make more films.

    Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery will debut in select theaters on Wednesday, November 26th, before premiering on Netflix on Friday, December 12.

    Have a tip we should know? [email protected]

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    Jenna Anderson

    Jenna Anderson is the host of the Go Read Some Comics YouTube channel, as well as one of the hosts of the Phase Hero podcast. She has been writing professionally since 2017, but has been loving pop culture (and especially superhero comics) for her entire life. You can usually find her drinking a large iced coffee from Dunkin and talking about comics, female characters, and Taylor Swift at any given opportunity.

    Jenna Anderson

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  • Daniel Craig Returns to Solve “Impossible Crime” in ‘Wake Up Dead Man’ Trailer

    Daniel Craig is heading to church for guidance in the teaser trailer for Netflix‘s Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.

    Writer-director Rian Johnson‘s third feature in the Knives Out franchise is set for release in select theaters Nov. 26 before its streaming debut Dec. 12. Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack and Thomas Haden Church round out the film’s ensemble cast.

    Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery centers on detective Benoit Blanc (Craig) attempting to figure out his most dangerous case yet. The first trailer (below) teases the mysterious death of a charming priest.

    “To understand this case, you need to look at the myth that’s being constructed,” Craig says in the footage. “A man gives a sermon. He then, in plain sight of everyone, walks into a sealed concrete box. Thirty seconds later, that man is lying dead. A classic, impossible crime.”

    Johnson helmed the movie from his own script. The filmmaker produced the project alongside Ram Bergman.

    Here’s the logline: “Benoit Blanc (Craig) returns for his most dangerous case yet in the third and darkest chapter of Rian Johnson’s murder mystery opus. When young priest Jud Duplenticy (O’Connor) is sent to assist charismatic firebrand Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), it’s clear that all is not well in the pews. Wicks’ modest-but-devoted flock includes devout church lady Martha Delacroix (Close), circumspect groundskeeper Samson Holt (Church), tightly-wound lawyer Vera Draven, Esq. (Washington), aspiring politician Cy Draven (McCormack), town doctor Nat Sharp (Renner), best-selling author Lee Ross (Scott) and concert cellist Simone Vivane (Spaeny). After a sudden and seemingly impossible murder rocks the town, the lack of an obvious suspect prompts local police chief Geraldine Scott (Mila Kunis) to join forces with renowned detective Benoit Blanc to unravel a mystery that defies all logic.”

    The franchise kicked off with the original Knives Out, which Lionsgate released theatrically in 2019. Not quite two years later, Netflix bought the exclusive rights to a pair of sequels, with the first follow-up — Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery — launching in late 2022.

    In his review of Wake Up Dead Man for The Hollywood Reporter, chief film critic David Rooney praised the film’s “considerable plus of Josh O’Connor as a former boxer turned priest who becomes both a murder suspect and a Watson to Benoit Blanc’s Sherlock Holmes.”

    See more first-look photos, below.

    Andrew Scott, Jeremy Renner, Cailee Spaeny, Kerry Washington, Thomas Haden Church, Glenn Close, Kerry Washington and Daryl McCormack.

    John Wilson/Netflix © 2025

    Josh O’Connor in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.

    Courtesy of Netflix © 2025

    Andrew Scott, Mila Kunis, Daryl McCormack, Glenn Close, Kerry Washington and Cailee Spaeny.

    John Wilson/Netflix © 2025

    Josh Brolin in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.

    John Wilson/Netflix © 2025

    Ryan Gajewski

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  • Josh O’Connor Takes Wake Up Dead Man to Church

    As a priest clinging to faith, O’Connor is silly, sincere, and steals the new Knives Out movie from Benoit Blanc.
    Photo: Netflix

    Like any good mystery series, the Benoit Blanc movies know the value of repetition. You could call it a formula if you felt like knocking this series of films from writer-director Rian Johnson, which kicked off with Knives Out in 2019 and continued with Glass Onion in 2022. As those two films did, Johnson’s latest, Wake Up Dead Man, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival to this year’s most rabid crowds so far. Once again, Johnson has gathered together an all-star cast — this group includes Glenn Close, Andrew Scott, Kerry Washington, Jeremy Renner, and Josh Brolin — to set up the pins so that Daniel Craig’s dapper Southern detective can knock ’em all down. But while Wake Up Dead Man is another murder mystery, the most compelling crime in the film occurs in plain sight, as Josh O’Connor outright steals the film out from under Benoit Blanc, and he does it dressed in the vestments of a Catholic priest.

    O’Connor plays Reverend Jud Duplenticy, a young priest seeking his own salvation. He gets sent to a small upstate New York church to assist Monsignor Wicks (Josh Brolin), a kind of Catholic Colonel Kurtz — aggressive and territorial and half-mad. O’Connor plays his half of the power struggle between the two priests initially as light comedy; the English actor (playing American again, as he did in Challengers) is downright nebbishy in moments. He’s a great fit for Johnson’s tendency to puncture the moment with comic relief, which is kind of infuriating. No one that handsome should also get to have good comic timing.

    But it’s in the film’s surprising degree of sincerity that O’Connor makes himself invaluable. Wake Up Dead Man is the most earnest (and least comedic) of the three Blanc films. And it’s sincere about faith, of all things, and politics, too. My guess is that will occupy a great deal of the reaction to this movie. If Knives Out and Glass Onion were sideswipes at the anti-immigrant right and Silicon Valley fascists, respectively, Wake Up Dead Man is Rian Johnson taking dead aim at Trump and his band of hard-liners. The all-star cast mostly plays Wicks’ parishioners, each with their own little set of personal foibles that at any moment could become a motive to kill. Because yes, there is eventually a murder, and Blanc turns up in town full of theories and brio.

    But this is Father Jud’s movie. We get a third of the way into it before Blanc arrives, and by then, O’Connor has already more than capably put the film on his shoulders. An idealistic priest with a profound belief in the Church’s power to save souls could be a tough sell for another actor, but O’Connor capably lands every beat — he’s awfully formidable for a pretty boy, and awfully sympathetic for a priest. There’s a darkness on the periphery of his performance, too. No man of such intense religious faith can ever be ruled out as a killer, after all.

    Daniel Craig was deservedly lauded for the first two Blanc films, and he’s no less winning in this one. But with Wake Up Dead Man as interested in salvation as it is in its whodunit yarn, Josh O’Connor ends up as the film’s MVP: Most Valuable… Priest. (So dumb.)


    See All



    Joe Reid

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  • Toronto: Rian Johnson Takes Latest ‘Knives Out’ Mystery “Back to Church”

    The world premiere for Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery on Saturday night at the Toronto Film Festival kicked off more like a religious service than a glitzy, star-studded affair when director Rian Johnson came on stage to introduce his latest murder mystery for Netflix.

    “We’re going back to church. Can I get an Amen?” Johnson asked the capacity Princess of Wales Theatre audience with a dramatic call-back. “One more, give me an Amen!” he added.

    He got those amens and sustained applause when the final credits rolled after a two hour screening. And what emerged with the first look in Toronto was a third Knives Out mystery for Netflix with a darker tone and a commentary on the role of faith and logic in today’s divisive times.

    During the post-screening Q&A, Johnson, joined on stage by his A-list cast, talked about wrestling with his own religious faith when hammering out his third Knives Out mystery. “I grew up very religious. I’m not religious anymore. I have a lot of complicated feelings about it. And I wanted to kind of work into it and write about that. And you have a script at the end of it,” he explained.

    The latest Knives Out whodunnit will fit well in Trumpian times as it’s set in a small town church riven by an ecclesiastical power struggle between one priest, played by Josh Brolin, who is more of a rapacious cult leader, and a second priest (Josh O’Connor), who shows his church members human grace and fallibility.

    As to how audiences for Wake Up the Dead ultimately solve the latest crime mystery with their own viewing, Johnson insisted his Knives Out films remain above all else entertainment. “It’s a movie, and it needs to work as a roller coaster ride, not a crossword puzzle. If you’re focused on the audience trying to figure it out, then that’s going to get boring really quick. It’s all about the characters. It’s all about actual story,” the director said.

    Daniel Craig reprises his role as detective Benoit Blanc, only in the third installment his character is gentler and kinder as he solves his latest mystery, rather than looking to nail a killer.

    Craig during the Q&A praised Johnson for pulling off the latest ensemble Knives Out mystery with Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Glenn Close and Kerry Washington and other heavy-hitters among the cast. “Putting this many stars into one film is literally the definition of herding cats. It’s logistically a nightmare. And this is the man that put it together and led us,” Craig said.

    Wake Up Dead Man will be released on Dec. 12, in time for an awards run. Johnson has been Oscar-nominated nominated twice for his Knives Out films, one for original and another for adapted screenplay.

    The Toronto Film Festival runs through to Sept. 14.

    Etan Vlessing

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