We’re not even in the heat of Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery season yet. The highly-anticipated movie is still a month away from debuting in select theaters, before it premieres on Netflix around the holiday season, but hype is still growing.
At this point, I would watch virtually anything that writer-director Rian Johnson brings to life, so I know I will be seated for Wake Up Dead Man at the nearest available opportunity. But based on his newest comments, it sounds like the movie he’ll make after that could already be something special.
In a recent interview with Empire, Johnson explained that, “The most exciting thing right now is this idea I have in my head for the next thing I’m gonna make, and I think ultimately, that’s all you can do, is just kind of follow your nose.”
When speaking about what that “next thing” would be, Johnson revealed, “If I had to define it genre-wise, I’d say it harkens back to the ’70s paranoid thrillers. It’s got a light sci-fi element to it.”
Those two sentences, combined with Johnson’s filmography thus far, already sound like such an intriguing combination. The Knives Out movies have been a love letter to so many different corners of cinema, whether in overarching influences or in smaller moments. I, personally, never would have found (and largely enjoyed) the bonkers 1973 mystery The Last of Sheila if not for its influence on 2022’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. So the idea of Johnson taking a crack at ’70s conspiracy thrillers in the vein of The Conversation and Three Days of the Condor sounds delightful.
Plus, there’s the “light sci-fi element” of it all. Johnson has already proven his chops in that field, from the fully-entrenched science fiction of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, to the more genre-bending elements of Looper. Wherever this new movie might fall on that spectrum, and whatever that component might be (Aliens? Robots? Something else entirely?), I have no doubt that it could be something cool.
In the process, it might soften the blow of the fact that Johnson’s planned Star Wars trilogy isn’t coming to fruition anytime soon. As he also told the outlet: “That cog will be turning the rest of my life. I love Star Wars. And if some day it makes sense to come back to it, for both of us, it would be the most wonderful thing in the world.”
Here are some other things we saw on the Internet today:
- Tatiana Maslany and Tim Heidecker in the same movie?! Say less! (Deadline)
- Before Wicked: For Good even has a chance to make us cry, a new TV special might do the trick. (Entertainment Weekly)
- It’s not a Saturday morning fever dream: we might be getting ANOTHER G.I. Joe and Transformers crossover onscreen! (Deadline)
- Oh good, Absolute Batman is going to traumatize Bruce Wayne for at least another two years… (Our Best Jackett)
(featured image: Tiffany Rose/Getty Images for Newport Beach Film Festival)
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