To put it simply, writing a Knives Out script isn’t easy. Rian Johnson has now penned (and directed) three back-to-back Benoit Blanc mysteries, throwing Daniel Craig’s Southern-fried detective into head-scrambling whodunnits that rip up the narrative rulebook. But it seems third outing Wake Up Dead Man was a particularly fiendish one to crack – a film that not only saw Johnson cook up an “impossible crime” for Blanc to solve, but also dig deep into soulful themes that really matter to him.
“This was definitely the hardest script I’ve ever written,” he tells Empire. This one sees Blanc attempt to solve a murder in a church, where Josh Brolin’s fear-mongering Monsignor Wicks has clashed with Josh O’Connor’s young and idealistic priest Father Jud. Those characters offered a way in to themes Johnson was keen to explore. “I grew up very Christian — not just raised going to church, but with a belief in God, and a relationship with Christ being incredibly central to the way I framed everything in the world around me. And I’m not anymore,” he explains. “I have lots of people in my life that I love that still are [religious], and there are things about that time that I still really treasure. I have a lot of complicated feelings about it.”
Those ideas, and the complex narrative structure, meant Johnson mulled for eight months before he even started writing. “Once he starts, he’s like a dog with a bone — he works it and works it and works it until he gets it right,” says Daniel Craig, who read the script as soon as it arrived with him. “And then read it immediately again,” he says. “It’s like watching the movies — it’s always great to watch it a second time, because there are always bits you miss.” For Johnson, he hopes it results in a richly layered mystery, no matter your personal beliefs. “That’s the real reason the script was so hard to write,” he says of the themes. “It’s something I do take really seriously. I wanted to explore it in a really honest way, while also not being facile about it, or — God forbid — moralistic or irreverent.” Let the divine investigation begin.
Read Empire’s full Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery feature – speaking to Rian Johnson, Daniel Craig, Josh Brolin, Glenn Close and more – in the Stranger Things 5 issue, on sale Thursday 23 October. Pre-order a copy online here. Wake Up Dead Man is in cinemas from 26 November and on Netflix from 12 December.
