Knives Out (2019)
- To accurately portray their role in Knives Out, Daniel Craig spent weeks conducting hands-on research and rehearsing directly with director Rian Johnson.
- Despite initial studio skepticism, Knives Out went on to gross over $327,898,746 worldwide.
Knives Out is a 2019 American mystery film written and directed by Rian Johnson. The film follows the investigation into the death of wealthy crime novelist Harlan Thrombey, played by Christopher Plummer, who is found dead the morning after his 85th birthday celebration. Renowned private detective Benoit Blanc, played by Daniel Craig with a flamboyant Southern drawl, is anonymously hired to investigate the case and must navigate the lies, secrets, and grudges of the Thrombey family β a dysfunctional collection of parasites, sycophants, and self-absorbed heirs, each of whom had a motive for murder.
The ensemble cast included Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, and LaKeith Stanfield. Rian Johnson constructed an ingenious mystery that appeared to reveal its solution within the first act, then spent the remainder of the film subverting and complicating that revelation in increasingly clever ways. Daniel Craig's Benoit Blanc β genteel, theatrical, and deceptively sharp β was an instantly iconic detective creation that drew from the Agatha Christie tradition while feeling entirely contemporary.
Ana de Armas's performance as Marta, Harlan's nurse and the story's moral center, was the film's emotional anchor. Knives Out earned $311 million worldwide on a $40 million budget, a remarkable commercial performance for an original, non-franchise film. Netflix subsequently acquired the rights to two sequels for approximately $469 million, one of the largest film deals in history, cementing the franchise's commercial viability.
