Casting the Knives Out sequel
Rian Johnson's whodunit works as well as it does because of its tremendous cast. So, let's play pretend and cast the recently announced sequel.
We’ve known for a while now that Rian Johnson would be operating in franchise territory for the foreseeable future. We just got the precise franchise wrong by a parsec or two.
Johnson, best known as the writer and director of The Last Jedi — episode eight of the Star Wars saga, the second film in the sequel trilogy, and the most polarizing addition to the story — was handed his own Star Wars trilogy in November 2017, shortly before The Last Jedi hit theaters the following month to rave reviews and spawned a backlash that this newsletter will likely address at some point in the not so distant future, but won’t get into today, because writing about Star Wars for the first edition of the newsletter since I announced its existence would be far too on brand, even for me. In the aftermath of that backlash, Johnson’s Star Wars trilogy appears to be taking an indefinite hiatus, a dreaded term that any teenager of the aughts should painfully associate with the first blink-182 breakup (#TeamMarkAndTravis) — the breakup that wasn’t about Tom searching for aliens.
But from the ashes of The Last Jedi another franchise has risen.
In November, Johnson’s whodunit (he both wrote and directed it) Knives Out was released to widespread acclaim — this time from critics and audiences. It made a shitload of money, was nominated for a screenwriting Oscar, and got greenlit for a sequel with the potential to morph into a franchise revolving around Daniel Craig’s ridiculous detective character, Benoit Blanc — all the while The Rise of Skywalker, the follow up to The Last Jedi that undid most of what Johnson established, earned a firm meh response from both critics and audiences, but that’s also a story for another time. I promise, Star Wars content is coming.
The Oscar Knives Out should’ve won is Best Casting, a category that inexplicably doesn’t exist at the Academy Awards. Last week, I rewatched Knives Out for the first time since it hit theaters and was disappointed to discover that the mystery of the movie doesn’t really hold up on a second viewing, once you actually know where it’s all going. That’s not necessarily surprising. It’s also not a knock on a whodunit movie.
I still liked Knives Out on my second watch, but I realized that I wasn’t ensnared by it for the same reasons I was the first time around. The movie still works on a repeat viewing, but it only works because of the cast of actors, an ensemble that is spearheaded by Ana de Armas and supported by the likes of Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, and Lakeith Stanfield.
The entirety of the cast, though, won’t be back for the sequel. As Johnson explained on the red carpet at the Oscars, the next one won’t continue the Thrombey story. This is Blanc’s franchise.
"I’m writing what hopefully will be the next one right now," Johnson told EW. "The idea is, it would be Daniel Craig as the detective — whole new cast, whole new case, whole new location. It’s just like doing another Hercule Poirot mystery like Agatha Christie did."
With that in mind, and because I’m the kind of person who often fantasizes about having control over a movie even though I know nothing about making movies, I decided to put together my dream, but also somewhat realistic cast for the Knives Out sequel. The plan is to swap out each member of the Knives Out cast with a different actor. Their roles don’t have to be identical in a new movie with a new mystery in a new location, but I’m trying to assemble a similar type of cast.
In my dream world, I’d get Brad and Leo, Matt and Ben, Natalie Portman, Florence Pugh, Jessica Chastain, Meryl Streep, and Baby Yoda.
But we don’t live in my dream world — if we did, Disney would be making a Jyn Erso TV series instead of a Cassian Andor one and George R.R. Martin would be capable of finishing The Winds of Winter.
I’m trying to be somewhat realistic here — the key word being somewhat.
(h/t Nerdist for constructing its own cast that inspired me to do the same)
A̶n̶a̶ ̶d̶e̶ ̶A̶r̶m̶a̶s̶ Anya Chalotra as the leadKnives Out didn’t put de Armas on the map. Prior to its release, she’d already held substantial roles in War Dogs and Blade Runner 2049. Anyone who’s watched those movies, BR2049 especially, has known for a while now that she has the makings of a star. When Johnson hired her, she was proven, but also still mostly unfamiliar to mainstream audiences.
But what Knives Out did was confirm that she is, in fact, a star, capable of stealing a movie from an ensemble cast of fellow stars, and deserves more than just roles playing the love interest of the hero. Craig might be the subject of the movie and looming franchise, but Armas is the beating heart of the film. It just doesn’t work without her character. And the character doesn’t work without her performance.
So, to replace her in the sequel, we’re looking for an actor who isn’t entirely unfamiliar, but also hasn’t reached superstardom yet and is capable of being the emotional lead.
It was tempting to pair Daisy Ridley with Johnson once again, but I think the role works better if the actor comes in with a mostly blank face, and to no fault of her own, it’s difficult right now to see Ridley as anyone other than Rey — plus, Ridley already checked the whodunit box three years ago.
That said, someone please hire Daisy Ridley!
I landed on Anya Chalotra. Those who have watched season one of The Witcher are no doubt familiar with her; she plays Yennefer, a sorceress who obsesses over finding a cure to her infertility. As Yen, Chalotra brings a mixture of power and vulnerability. She’s so good in the role that her character is far more interesting than the Witcher himself.
She’s also never been in a movie before. The Witcher, which is allegedly Netflix’s most watched first season of television, was really her first mainstream role. So, she qualifies as a blank face to most of the world, but is still familiar enough to a bloc of viewers and proven enough that hiring her wouldn’t be much of a gamble.
Based on her work as Yen, she’s got the chops to do what de Armas accomplished.
C̶h̶r̶i̶s̶ ̶E̶v̶a̶n̶s̶ Daniel Kaluuya as the outsiderTerrified in Get Out. Terrifying in Widows. The by-the-book cop in Sicario. On the run from police in Queen & Slim. The ever versatile Daniel Kaluuya replaces Evans in the role of the outsider. Like Evans, he brings a high level of likability to the role, but he’s also a talented enough actor to bring other aspects to the mix. I have my minor grievances with Widows, but it was borderline criminal that Kaluuya wasn’t nominated for his performance as a cold-blooded killer.
And speaking of James Bond, he would absolutely kill as Craig’s replacement.
J̶a̶m̶i̶e̶ ̶L̶e̶e̶ ̶C̶u̶r̶t̶i̶s̶ Eva Green as the matriarchAs Craig prepares to become the face of a new franchise, his time as James Bond is coming to a close in April with No Time To Die, the fifth and final installment with Craig as the titular character. Craig’s run as Bond began in 2006 with Casino Royale. The lead actress in that movie (still the best of Craig’s reign, at least to me, anyway)?
Eva Green.
She played Bond’s love interest, Vesper, and it was their connection and the undeniable chemistry between Craig and Green that elevated the movie from fun and entertaining to one of the best Bond films ever. Her character’s death still hangs over Bond four films later. They still haven’t found a romantic partner for Bond that measures up to Vesper.
I say we reunite them.
Here’s where it’s worth noting that Green and Chalotra look like they could be related, which maybe could factor into the plot. Johnson does, after all, come from Star Wars, a saga that loves to flirt (occasionally more) with the idea of siblings.
D̶o̶n̶ ̶J̶o̶h̶n̶s̶o̶n̶ Bradley Whitford as the racist asshole Remember Bradley Whitford’s character in Get Out? In Get Out, Whitford is pitch perfect when he spews the “By the way, I would have voted for Obama for a third term if I could” line — maybe because he himself didn’t even realize it was a joke the first time he read it (Y I K E S).
Johnson’s character in Knives Out, especially when he’s talking about immigrants (bootstraps, doing it the right way, etc.), gives off some major Get Out vibes that Whitford can replicate seamlessly.
M̶i̶c̶h̶a̶e̶l̶ ̶S̶h̶a̶n̶n̶o̶n̶ Ben Mendelsohn as the dirtbag Shannon plays a dirt bag sensationally, so an equally slimy actor is needed here.
Enter: Ben Mendelsohn, who does slimy and has more fun with it than almost anybody else in television or film. No one does sweaty better than Mendelsohn. No one does hungover and on a two-day bender better than Mendelsohn. No one does a fuck up fucked up better than Mendelsohn.
I was thinking mostly of Bloodline, a Netflix show that ran for three seasons, in which Mendelsohn plays the black sheep of a prestigious family. But more recently, I watched Mississippi Grind, a movie that had been sitting in my Netflix queue for well over a year, in which he plays a degenerate gambler.
I usually can’t tolerate Ryan Reynolds (still haven’t seen Deadpool!), but I didn’t mind him in Mississippi Grind. Reynold’s movie-star slickness typically rubs me the wrong way, but that look works opposite Mendelsohn and his sleaziness.
Nobody does dirtbag better than Mendelsohn, whose dirtbag resume also includes The Place Beyond The Pines, but he’s also known as the villain in blockbusters like Rogue One, Ready Player One, and The Dark Knight Rises. That baggage comes in handy here, as it immediately affects the way we look at him. We’re already suspicious of his motives before he utters a word.
Remembering his performances as villains made me realize that his skill isn’t looking like a dirtbag. His skill is blending seamlessly into an environment and letting it consume him. He’s great as the clean polished CEO in Ready Player One and Rogue One. He looks slick in a suit in The Dark Knight Rises. When he’s asked to do dirtbag (to borrow from a similar comparison that I can’t for the life of me remember who made it), he looks like a cigarette that was thrown out the window of a moving car, has been sitting in a roadside ditch for two weeks, and finally got up and learned how to walk. I realize all of this sounds mean, but I really do mean it as a compliment. Whatever setting Johnson chooses for the sequel, Mendelsohn will look like he’s been living there his entire life. He absorbs atmosphere and oozes it in his performances.
Plus, he’s legitimately terrifying when he wants to be.
T̶o̶n̶i̶ ̶C̶o̶l̶l̶e̶t̶t̶e̶ Jennifer Lawrence as the fake This is probably the most unrealistic casting considering J-Law’s stature. Would she be willing to take on a supporting role as a member of an ensemble when she has the clout to land a starring role in any blockbuster or Oscar-bait movie?
If she would say yes remains an unknown, but I think she should. As my friend Winston always points out whenever we drunkenly rank our top five actors — we do this a lot, because we’re cool like that — J-Law could use a win right now.
What’s the last great movie she’s been a part of? It definitely wasn’t the latest X-Men movie, Red Sparrow (a shame, because the books deserve a great adaptation), Mother!, Passengers, another one of those X-Men movies, or Joy. Rotten Tomatoes isn’t the be all end all (says the guy who genuinely loved Lucy in the Sky), but the average Rotten Tomatoes score of her past six movies is 45.8.
You can make an argument that the final two Hunger Game installments were great — at least I would — but I don’t think that’s an opinion everyone shares. I think you have to go all the way back to 2013 to find the last great J-Law movie. In 2013, she was in American Hustle and Catching Fire, the second Hunger Games movie that most would probably say is the best of the saga. The year prior, she won an Academy Award for Silver Linings Playbook. Lawrence remains one of the best actors of this era, but she’s searching for a win right now.
The Knives Out sequel would be exactly that considering Johnson has never really made a bad movie — from Knives Out to The Last Jedi (even if you don’t like it, it garnered a 91 on Rotten Tomatoes and an 85 on Metacritic, and dominated at the box office) to Looper. Sure things don’t necessarily exist in Hollywood, but at this point, he’s as close to a sure thing as writers/directors get outside of the Martin Scorseses, Quentin Tarantinos, Bong Joon-hos, and Denis Villeneuves of the world.
Speaking of 2013, American Hustle was a movie with an ensemble cast, and Lawrence thrived in that kind of environment alongside Christian Bale and Amy Adams. She’s a movie star, so she's typically tasked with carrying a movie, but she’s sneaky great at playing off other stars (Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook, to name one example).
She’d be perfect in Collette’s role. Collete played a moocher who runs a lifestyle company (Goop basically).
A slightly different iteration of Lawrence’s character in American Hustle would work here.
And since David O’Russell is seemingly cheating on Lawrence by casting Margot Robbie in his upcoming movie, Lawrence might be free.
L̶a̶k̶e̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶S̶t̶a̶n̶f̶i̶e̶l̶d̶ Kyle Chandler as the detective Coach Taylor starred alongside Mendelsohn in Bloodline as a cop. Chandler also played an FBI agent in The Wolf of Wall Street, a CIA person dude in Zero Dark Thirty, and a sheriff in Super 8. By now, he’s probably overqualified to be the detective who plays second fiddle to Craig’s character.
Really, this is just an excuse to see Chandler and Mendelsohn together again — their chemistry is undeniable in the series, which was at its best when the two of them were in the same room talking — and to pair Coach Taylor with L̶a̶n̶d̶r̶y̶ Lance again.
N̶o̶a̶h̶ ̶S̶e̶g̶a̶n̶ Jesse Plemons as the dumb copCoach Taylor miraculously turned Landry Clarke — aka Lance — into Texas high school’s version of Adam Vinatieri. In Knives Out 2, he tries to turn him into a competent cop.
On a more serious note, I recently watched El Camino for the first time after I completed my first rewatch of Breaking Bad since the show aired live. It reminded me just how fucking weird Plemons is capable of getting.
Does anybody do weird as delightfully as Plemons?
Anyone who’s seen Game Night, a movie in which Plemons happens to play a cop, knows the answer to that question is no.
In the Knives Out sequel, Plemons plays the cop who’s almost entirely useless, but is there to deliver a few laughs with his iconic awkwardness that managed to charm Kirsten Dunst.
Most importantly, it gives Lance some more quality time with Coach.
K̶a̶t̶h̶e̶r̶i̶n̶e̶ ̶L̶a̶n̶g̶f̶o̶r̶d̶ Farrah Mackenzie as one kidJulia Butters of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood fame is the obvious choice, but Farrah Mackenzie gave a sneaky great performance in Steven Soderbergh’s heist movie, Logan Lucky, that also happens to star Craig in a role that involves an outrageous accent. I’m not saying Johnson stole his idea for Craig’s character from Logan Lucky, but it is time for us to recognize Logan Lucky as the first real “Daniel Craig Does An Outrageous Accent” movie, which is on the cusp of turning into an entire subgenre.
Anyway, Mackenzie holds her own against Channing Tatum. She’s great.
J̶a̶e̶d̶e̶n̶ ̶M̶a̶r̶t̶e̶l̶l̶ Archie Yates as the other kid Did you see Jojo Rabbit? Archie Yates isn’t Jojo. He’s the best friend of Jojo. And he’s a delight — he’s so good in limited screen time that he’s apparently set to star in an upcoming Home Alone project.
Yates, who played a Nazi in Jojo Rabbit, replaces Martell, who played a neo-Nazi in Knives Out.
C̶h̶r̶i̶s̶t̶o̶p̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶P̶l̶u̶m̶m̶e̶r̶ Charles Dance as the old manBecause every movie could use a dash of Tywin Lannister.
Two bonuses: Adam Driver as weird Adam Driver and Laura Dern as Laura Dern Driver delivered an iconic performance as Kylo Ren — sorry, I mean Ben Solo — in the Star Wars sequel trilogy. He was Oscar-worthy in Marriage Story. But arguably his best work comes when he’s allowed to be the weirdest possible version of himself.
Exhibit A: Post-sex nachos!
Exhibit B: His work opposite Craig in Logan Lucky.
As for Laura Dern, who also worked with Johnson on The Last Jedi and Driver on The Last Jedi and Marriage Story, do I really need to provide an explanation?
She’s Laura Dern.