“This is a twisted web,” private detective Benoit Blanc tells his partner Marta (Ana de Armas) in 2019’s Knives Out. “And we are not finished untangling it, not yet.” We begin with that quote not just because it’s always nice to recall the syrupy Southern accent Daniel Craig gives Blanc, but because it’s important to keep our limitations in mind when getting a new look at the upcoming Knives Out movie Wake Up Dead Man.
Where the first images from Knives Out and Glass Onion highlighted the ensemble cast of those movies, a new first look photo from Wake Up Dead Man (see above) takes a more narrow approach. We simply see Blanc, looking somehow even more chic with his shaggier haircut, standing in an ornate church with a priest played by Challengers break out Josh O’Connor. The two stare at something off camera, a visual that piques Blanc’s interest but doesn’t seem to impress O’Connor’s priest.
Outside of that, the image still leaves much to untangle in the mystery of Wake Up Dead Man. We know that Craig and O’Connor will be joined by another impressive cast. Steady hands such as Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, and Thomas Haden Church will be joined by younger stars Cailee Spaeny and Daryl McCormack, along with familiar faces Andrew Scott, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, and Mila Kunis. It’s hard to believe that director Rian Johnson won’t find a way to sneak in Joseph Gordon Levitt and Noah Segan, who have popped up in almost all of his movies.
But what will these people be doing in Wake Up Dead Man? We don’t have any answers yet—of course, they’ll be a murder that draws Blanc’s attention, but outside of that we can only speculate.
Like Knives Out and Glass Onion, Wake Up Dead Man takes its title from a pop song. “Wake Up Dead Man” appears on the 1997 U2 album Pop, released toward the end of the Irish band’s period of experimentation in club music. U2 frontman Bono often puts his protestant beliefs and spiritual longing at the center of his work, but “Wake Up Dead Man” stands out for its anger. Throughout the song, Bono accuses Jesus of abandoning humanity, leaving behind a hopeless, horrible world.
Of course, Knives Out didn’t have any of the moody desperation of the Radiohead song that inspired its title and Glass Onion wasn’t a collection of Beatles in-jokes like the White Album track. But the prominent role of priests in Wake Up Dead Man, and Johnson’s own religious upbringing, suggests that the movie may have something in common with the titular song.
Both of the previous Benoit Blanc movies scrutinized the powerful. Knives Out savaged the spoiled rich kids who benefited from their patriarch, a famous mystery author. Glass Onion satirized new money, the utter stupidity of an Elon Musk-like tech giant and his influencer friends. Will Wake Up Dead Man turn its skeptical eye toward modern religion? Will a death in the church reveal structural problems among the faithful?
That’s an audacious idea, but after two excellent movies, Johnson and Craig have earned the benefit of the doubt. But, then again, as Blanc taught us, we are not yet close to untangling the mystery.
Wake Up Dead Man comes to theaters and Netflix in Fall 2025.
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From https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/wake-up-dead-man-knives-out-3-plot-story-release-date/
