Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery could well be the first and final Rian Johnson movie to feature that subtitle.
Throwing another murder case at Daniel Craig's detective Benoit Blanc, this sun-soaked sequel to Johnson's revisionist whodunnit Knives Out, as it turns out, couldn't just rely on the character's name to get bums in seats, hence the marketing move.
In a recent edition of The Filmcast, writer-director Johnson explained: "The thing is, I totally get it. It's not like this was done against my will or something. I completely understand it.
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"Because after the first movie, I think people knew that they liked Knives Out [but] they didn't necessarily know it well enough to know who Benoit Blanc was.
"I think that would've gotten blank stares," Johnson conceded. "And I wanted everyone who loved Knives Out to know that [Glass Onion] is the next one of those. So I absolutely 100% was on board and totally got it that we had to do that."
Johnson's remarks came after he previously claimed in December that he initially didn't want the title to be what it is. "Honestly, I’m pissed off that we have A Knives Out Mystery in the title. You know? I want it to just be called Glass Onion," he told The Atlantic.
"I get it, and I want everyone who liked the first movie to know this is next in the series, but also, the whole appeal to me is it’s a new novel off the shelf every time. But there’s a gravity of a thousand suns toward serialised storytelling."
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Peering into the future, though, Johnson is clearly eager to jettison that A Knives Out Mystery subtitle from his upcoming third flick, which is now being written.
The filmmaker revealed on The Filmcast that he wanted to lose the subtitle sharpish, as he suggested a new title: A Benoit Blanc Mystery.
"I will say, with this one, with the reach of Netflix and just how many more people I feel like have seen it and how much more it feels like it's actually in the culture, we're at least getting closer to being able to get away with A Benoit Blanc Mystery and people would know what we're talking about."
Knives Out and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery are both streaming on Netflix.
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Reporter, Digital Spy
Dan is a freelance entertainment journalist. Beginning his writing career in 2014, Dan's work first graced the pages of cult publications Starburst magazine and Little White Lies before moving onto Total Film, Digital Spy, NME and Yahoo Entertainment.
In the film and TV universe, he kneels at the altar of Jim Carrey, Daniel Plainview, Mike Ehrmantraut and Paulie Walnuts.
