Rian Johnson’s path to developing the Knives Out cinematic world, which will expand on December 23 with the release of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery on Netflix, began with Agatha Christie. “I am a whodunit junkie,” the filmmaker tells Krista Smith in a new edition of the podcast Skip Intro, adding: “When I was a youngster, there were always Agatha Christie paperbacks on the shelf at my parents’ home. It seemed like the first adult book I picked up off the shelf as a youngster and began reading.”
Johnson says he was captivated by Christie’s famed detective, Hercule Poirot, who features in more than 30 of her novels, as well as the social undercurrents that the author has woven into her mysteries. “She wasn’t writing these nice little things set in the past when Christie was writing those.
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She wasn’t just jotting down memories. She wasn’t writing things that were restricted to our world. She was writing for her time, writing at the moment, and connecting with her current society.” Inspired by Christie, Johnson set out to produce a novel that reflected his own period while remaining true to the genre he enjoys.
“Let’s write a whodunit set in America right now, and let’s interact with what’s going on right now,” he recalls thinking. “These aren’t huge social messages or huge political or cultural or movie messages or whatever. They’re basically whodunits and entertainments, but, like Christie, they’re also involved with [the world]. In this situation, the 2020s in America.”
Every whodunit fan knows that an interesting detective is required to lead the charge. And it was here that Johnson encountered his first stumbling hurdle. “When I started writing the Benoit Blanc character, I suppose I screwed myself up because I started [thinking], ‘I have to build a Poirot.
I need to make a Sherlock. “I need eccentricities,” he says. “And so I started loading him up with all these peculiarities and he just became absurd. It was as if he were wearing a monocle. What if you were wearing an eye patch? What if he had multicolored eyes?’ And then I said, ‘OK, you know what? I’m not going to try to build a character on the page that isn’t defined by his actions in the mystery.”
In the end, it was Daniel Craig, armed only with “a mild Southern drawl,” who established Benoit Blanc’s supersleuth identity. “It’s not like we changed the dialogue or the script, but just Daniel inhabiting that role and bringing his attitude to it instantly brought it to life,” Johnson adds. “And, thank goodness, no eye patch is required.”
So, what comes next? Johnson says he’s eager to think about the next mystery as Glass Onion prepares to release on Netflix on December 23. “I’m already starting to, not because I’m thinking, ‘Boy, I’d best get the next one started,’ but because it’s so much fun,” he says.
“The second thing that gets me genuinely excited is Knives Out and Glass Onion is so distinct, and that’s something that harkens back to Christie in another way. How she would always find new ways to shake things up and keep the reader interested from book to book. She was constantly pushing herself creatively.”
Similarly, Johnson wants each of his films to have its own distinct personality. He promises that the third edition of the Knives Out franchise will be memorable. “Beyond setting, beyond bikinis versus sweaters, it actually is going to be trying something fresh narratively and tonally. “I’m already looking forward to the next one.”
Glass Onion is now showing in cinemas for a one-week run before it launches on Netflix on December 23. Listen to this week’s Skip Intro on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts for more behind-the-scenes information.