In just a few more weeks director Rian Johnson’s latest film Knives Out will be released to the public after garnering significant praise at various film festivals. Johnson was inspired by the works of acclaimed mystery author Agatha Christie, who wrote Murder on the Orient Express, to create a modern day ‘who dunnit?’ mystery, but she wasn’t his only inspiration. In a talk with Deadline, Johnson revealed he was also inspired by the amount of online hatred and trolling his previous film, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, received in coming up with the story and characters.
After its release, Star Wars: The Last Jedi became quite a divisive film among fans of the sci-fi franchise. People found a lot of negative things to say about Johnson’s film whether it was regarding certain story choices or characters. However, one element online trolls picked at was the inclusion and significance of many female characters, from Daisy Ridley’s Rey, Laura Dern’s Admiral Holdo and specifically Kelly Marie Tran’s Rose. Whether remarks were sexist or racist, the hate got so bad Ridley and Tran felt forced to shut down their Instagram and Twitter accounts because of the number and severity of comments they received. Online trolling is deconstructed through one character in the film, played by Jaeden Martell, who tweets alt-right hate speech.
“Anyone who’s on Twitter these days, God bless you because it’s rough waters out there, but there’s also wonderful stuff about it,” Johnson told Deadline. “That’s why we’re all still on it I guess. That’s one of the things Knives Out engages with, the current state of online culture. Whether you made a Star Wars movie or you have a cooking show, whatever you’re doing on there, someone’s going to be screaming at you about it probably. Let’s put it on a screen in a way we can all maybe have a laugh about it.”
Though Knives Out is still inspired by classic Christie novels and older film noirs, Johnson wanted to update the murder mystery genre by planting it the current cultural climate with the use of various pieces of technology people engage with on a daily basis now. “What we try and do is place it in modern day,” Johnson said. “That for me meant not just skinning it with cell phones, modern cars and music. That meant actually plugging it into 2019. We do character types who are slight caricatures of the type Agatha Christie used to do but with people who for better or worse you could only meet in 2019.”
Johnson is also still attached to direct a new trilogy of Star Wars films for Lucasfilm, but very little is known about those potential films. Lucasfilm has had some behind the scenes troubles with several directors on the Disney-era films, such as Tony Gilroy taking over rehsoot directing from Gareth Edwards on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, firing Chris Miller and Phil Lord and replacing them with Ron Howard on Solo: A Star Wars Story or firing Colin Trevorrow on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker before production even began and bringing back The Force Awakens‘ J.J. Abrams. The latest drama involves Disney cancelling the other trilogy with Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss and letting the pair go. That has people wondering whether Johnson is still attached to create his trilogy and he gave a brief, but positive, confirmation that he and Lucasfilm are still talking.
“We’re still engaged with Lucasfilm and we’ll wait and see,” Johnson said. “No updates on it at this moment, but yeah.”
Acclaimed writer and director Rian Johnson (Brick, Looper, The Last Jedi) pays tribute to mystery mastermind Agatha Christie in KNIVES OUT, a fun, modern-day murder mystery where everyone is a suspect. When renowned crime novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is found dead at his estate just after his 85th birthday, the inquisitive and debonair Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is mysteriously enlisted to investigate. From Harlan’s dysfunctional family to his devoted staff, Blanc sifts through a web of red herrings and self-serving lies to uncover the truth behind Harlan’s untimely death. With an all-star ensemble cast including Chris Evans, Ana De Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Michael Shannon, Toni Collette, LaKeith Stanfield, Katherine Langford and Jaeden Martell, KNIVES OUT is a witty and stylish whodunit guaranteed to keep audiences guessing until the very end.
