Knives Out 3 - Will It Ever Happen?

Despite its massive star power, the original "Knives Out" was a relatively modest production as far as Hollywood blockbusters go, coming in at $40 million in terms of its budget. Still, the murder mystery blew the doors off at the global box office, bringing in over $300 million in ticket sales. 

Unsurprisingly, this led to a bidding war for the sequel. While AppleTV+ and Amazon were two other candidates who were hoping to secure the right to produce a sequel, Netflix ended up snatching "Knives Out" for its own stable and a deal to pay over $450 million for two more films for more stories following private investigator Benoit Blanc was announced.

While we've already seen one-half of that deal with the star-studded, explosive comedy-mystery "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery," Netflix made a two-part deal to produce the films. This means that we'll be seeing "Knives Out 3" at some point down the road. Though we know very little about the prospective trilogy ender, there are some clues that we can parse out on our own and deliver to you in our own personal purloined letter.

Though it has already been announced that both "Knives Out 2" and "Knives Out 3" are going to be released on Netflix and are back-to-back projects from writer-director Rian Johnson, the previous film, "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery," was only released in late 2022. This fact is no doubt compounded by the SAG-AFTRA strikes that have been ongoing since late spring, but luckily for fans, Johnson had already started working on the third movie before the strikes even began.

Either way, with the strikes seemingly wrapping up, we can likely expect to see cast listings, a trailer, and a plot description for "Knives Out 3" sooner rather than later. Furthermore, given the prospective cost of the strikes for many studios, Netflix will likely be angling to get a surefire hit like "Knives Out 3" out the door as soon as possible. 

While the first movie opened in theaters, the sequel had a hybrid release, opening for a limited release for one week before Netflix added the film to its streaming catalog for home viewers. With that said, whether you want to potentially watch the upcoming sequel at home or on the big screen, you can likely expect a similar release strategy for "Knives Out 3."

Rian Johnson hasn't said much with regard to "Knives Out 3," but he did speak to Variety about what his influences were and gave a small inkling of what we can expect from the third film in the "Knives Out" franchise. The writer-director explained that he was emulating Agatha Christie first and foremost and attempting to tell a story in the same vein as her Hercule Poirot mystery novels.

"They felt like the most entertaining thing in the world," Johnson said of Christie's work. "And we make these movies as entertainment first and foremost. What was exciting about doing ['Glass Onion'] was the notion of trying to emulate Christie with a completely new story. I'm starting to work on the third movie now, and that's also what's got me creatively jazzed: I don't have to replicate the last movie at all. The goal is to strike out in a completely new direction tonally and thematically."

With these comments in mind, we can likely expect a new setting and a new focus to provide the backdrop for "Knives Out 3." Still, knowing Johnson, even those who are expecting the unexpected will likely be surprised by at least one of the many twists and turns that will no doubt be a part of the upcoming sequel. 

What "Knives Out" and "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" share in common is a twist-filled murder mystery plot where everyone has a potential motive to have committed the crime in question. Both movies are more or less locked-room mysteries, with all of the members of the cast in a single location and unable to leave until the murder is solved.

While each previous "Knives Out" mystery generally explored the cutthroat nature of succession in highly wealthy circles, the second movie cut especially deep. Casting Edward Norton as an Elon Musk-type tech billionaire who may not be nearly as smart as people think he is, the second film also leaned much harder into satire than its predecessor. Perhaps this could inform the tone of the third film in the trilogy. 

However, while the first two movies were somewhat similar in structure, jumping around from past to present from multiple points of view throughout, we can likely expect that the third movie will go a different direction in terms of its main setup for the plot. Only time will tell where Benoit Blanc ends up in the third installment in the trilogy.

The only sure thing we can nail down in terms of who will be starring in "Knives Out 3" is that Daniel Craig will be returning as Benoit Blanc. Though both "Knives Out" and "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" contained large ensemble casts, Blanc was the only consistent element between the two films. Though no character, aside from Benoit Blanc, returned for the sequel, if we had to bet on someone coming back from a previous film, it would be Lakeith Stanfield.

This is because Stanfield's Lieutenant Elliott was working at Blanc's side in the first film in an official capacity as a fellow investigator. Aside from those two, fans can likely expect another hodgepodge of established actors and industry up-and-comers to fill out the rest of the cast and offer plenty of suspects and motives for viewers to parse over while they watch "Knives Out 3."