Rian Johnson’s Netflix ‘Knives Out’ Sequel Gets A Trailer

Just days before its Toronto Film Festival debut, Netflix has released a teaser trailer for Glass Onion: A Knives Out mystery. If we were talking about Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery purely in terms of being a Netflix premiere, then getting a trailer 3.5 months out from its planned December 23 streaming launch would be unusually early for the streaming giant. But since it’s premiering on Saturday night in Toronto, well, here you go. The tease looks refreshingly cinematic and appropriately cryptic. And, yes, this looks and feels like a Knives Out sequel, which makes sense considering cinematographer Steve Yedlin, editor Bob Ducsay, and composer Nathan Johnson all returned alongside writer/director Rian Johnson and producer Ram Bergman.

It’s obviously spoiler-lite, more of an announcement teaser (yes, Daniel Craig’s Detective Benoit Blanc is *back*) than a full-on theatrical trailer. Speaking of a ‘theatrical trailer,’ it remains possible that the film will get a modest/limited theatrical release before its streaming launch. There has been much chatter about using the Knives Out sequel as a test case for old-school wide theatrical releases, at least in North America, since the original earned $164 million domestic and $311 million global in late 2019. But that seems to not be in the cards, so the question is to what extent it will play theatrically before the Christmas launch. Offhand, early October or early December is pretty clear.

Thanksgiving weekend is refreshingly crowded (Strange World, Devotion, The Fabelmans, etc.). However, I could see Netflix dropping the movie into Thanksgiving weekend in (mostly) Cinemark theaters just for the free publicity. That’s especially true if they aren’t trying to break box office records but rather goose the profile of what could quickly become their most-watched movie. Yes, that would be ironic. Knives Out 2 only exists because Netflix overpaid ($450 million for two sequels) because of the original film’s theatrical popularity. Beyond that, the movie looks perfectly interesting, and we’ll see how Johnson follows up a surprise smash when A) everyone has expectations and B) everyone expects another genre deconstruction.

The other issue is one concerning Netflix’s quality control when it comes to its original features. It would be pretty embarrassing for the Lionsgate original to earn rave reviews and strong word-of-mouth only for the Netflix-distributed follow-up to earn neither. Still, I’m guessing we wouldn’t be getting a festival premiere if it wasn’t at least pretty good. Come what may, Glass Onion stars Daniel Craig alongside (deep breath) Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick, Madelyn Cline, Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista and Ethan Hawke. Although, if I may, there’s a shot at 0:36 that seems to imply that many of the all-star suspects don’t make it to the climax. Place your bets.