A murder among family in “Knives Out”, a murder among false friends in “Glass Onion” – and then a murder among Muppets in “Knives Out 3”? Unfortunately, the director and screenwriter give the fans’ wishes a pretty clear rejection.
In “Knives Out – Murder is a Family Affair” Daniel Craig investigated for the first time as private detective Benoit Blanc and solved the death of bestselling author Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer). The wildly entertaining crime thriller was so successful at the box office that Netflix took notice and hired director and screenwriter Rian Johnson for a measly $450 million to make two sequels.
The first sequel, “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”, has been available on Netflix since 23 December 2022 – but what happens next in “Knives Out 3”? Since the films do not build on each other, but – as with the great Agatha Christie role model – stand almost entirely on their own, we can only speculate. And this is where the Muppets come in…
BENOIT BLANC IN “MUPPETS: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY”?
Because numerous fans on social media apparently want Benoit Blanc to meet the Muppets in his next adventure. So many fans, in fact, that Rian Johnson was asked about it by Netflix’s official magazine Tudum. “It’s quite a brilliant joke, I think, and I’ve actually thought about it a lot,” Johnson said. “I take the crime genre very seriously, but the Muppet genre as well”.
After careful consideration, however, Johnson said he has come to the conclusion that the two genres, crime fiction and Muppets, don’t necessarily go together: “I think there are very different rules for the two. You could either do a Benoit Blanc crime thriller with Muppets, but then they would seem out of place. Or you could do a Muppet movie with Benoit Blanc, but that would feel like a Muppet movie.”
He doesn’t want to compromise on one genre or the other, Johnson continued. But he at least promised, “If I ever do a Muppet movie, I just want to do a great Muppet movie. “
The idea is super fun and I don’t want to be a party pooper BUT… (also worth reading the whole thing because the photos in this piece are pretty freakin great) https://t.co/KTF3QWtMZI
– Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) January 3, 2023
In a recent tweet, Johnson again similarly summed up his ambivalent feelings: the idea is very funny and he doesn’t want to spoil the fun, but ultimately it remains an amusing mind game. At least we can really recommend the pictures Johnson mentions in the Netflix article he shared, for which the Muppets were photoshopped into scenes from “Glass Onion”.
So for now, we have no choice but to continue waiting to see which case Benoit Blanc will investigate next…
