Rian Johnson Reveals More About Daniel Craig’s Knives Out Character | Movie Review

In the “Knives Out” film series, James Bond star Daniel Craig plays a very different leading man in Benoit Blanc, a dandyish Southern gentleman detective with a passion for Stephen Sondheim’s “Follies” score. So, when director Rian Johnson was recently asked if the character was queer during a press conference with the cast at the London Film Festival, his answer was very blunt: “Yes, he obviously is.”

MarkMeets attended the premiere and conference as invited press and in a brief scene in the second “Knives Out” film “Glass Onion” features Craig’s Benoit Blanc living with a man during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the heavy implication from the scene that the brilliant detective and the other man are in a romantic relationship, it isn’t explicitly stated within the film, and Blanc’s sexuality largely has no bearing on the rest of the feature, which sees the character travel to Greece to tackle a new murder case.

SPOILERS: Craig, who portrays detective Benoit Blanc in “Knives Out,” is shown living with a man in the upcoming sequel “Glass Onion.”

“There’s nobody in the world I can imagine in bringing me more joy for Benoit Blanc to be with,” Johnson said about casting Blanc’s partner, who is played by an A-list actor in a cameo appearance. Craig, also at the press conference, chimed in: “No spoilers [but] who wouldn’t want to live with that person?”

Blanc’s second adventure, “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” is set to release in theaters and on Netflix this winter after premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival this September and closing the London Film Festival. The film is notably the first Netflix release to run in the three major U.S. theater chains — AMC Theaters, Regal Cinemas, and Cinemark — playing in roughly 600 theaters during its limited release.

Angela Lansbury and Stephen Sondheim make their poignant final screen appearances alongside Craig in a franchise that rebooted the whodunnit

The sequel to 2019’s successful “Knives Out” sees Craig joined by a completely new cast of suspects, with Edward Norton, Janelle Monaé, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista, Jessica Henwick, Madelyn Cline, Ethan Hawke, and Jackie Hoffman. Stephen Sondheim and Angela Lansbury are also confirmed to make cameo appearances in the film as themselves, in the final film appearances for both of the recently deceased Broadway legends.

Rian Johnson’s uproarious, dazzling Netflix sequel to Knives Out, is a triumph and tragedy; no movie this good should be confined to the cell of a streaming platform.

In our review of “Glass Onion” we praised the whodunnit, writing that, “Johnson isn’t reinventing the mystery movie with ‘Glass Onion,’ but he is having a hell of a time lightly deconstructing it and reorienting it to suit his whipsmart script and central super detective.”

The out-of-nowhere whodunnit franchise is two-for-two. Knives Out, an eat-the-rich banger with one of the strongest ensembles of the past decade, was a stroke of knotty genius.

Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc, with his I-say-I-say southern drawl, cigar, and donut-hole theorizing, became an instant fan favorite in a crowded echelon of clue-trawling icons, and demand for his return was just as immediate.

Glass Onion, in itself, is a perfect metaphor for the film: something that appears to be densely, complexly layered, when the actual substance is always in plain sight. Johnson never rushes through the story, allowing everyone’s dynamics to sharpen in the viewers’ eyes and ears; every practiced smile, every clutched compliment, and so many hints you’ll kick yourself for not paying heed later.

Netflix will release the film in select theaters on Wednesday, November 23, before releasing it on its streaming platform on Friday, December 23.