Each movie has had its own distinct style, but Johnson says there wasn’t a master plan to explore each of these genres one by one. “I actually think it’s very important that I just follow my instinct for each one,” he tells me. “I don’t want to plan them in advance.”
Ahead of Wake Up Dead Man’s theatrical premiere on November 26th (and Netflix premiere on December 12th), I talked with Johnson about what makes Knives Out different from other mysteries, why the latest film is his most personal, the importance of grounding things in real world, and after The Verge’s cameo in Glass Onion, whether our humble website will ever make an appearance in the series again.
The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Mila Kunis, Daniel Craig, and Josh O’Connor. Image: Netflix
Now that you’ve done three of these, is there anything you’ve learned about what makes this series distinct or unique?
I haven’t really taken a breath and thought about the unifying factor. There are two things that I struck on very early with this series and served it well, and maybe this is connective tissue. First of all, knowing instinctively just from being a fan of whodunits, the detective is not the main character. All of these movies are anchored by a character who the audience actually has empathy for, and who has skin in the game, who wants something and can’t get it. Ana [de Armas]’s character in the first one, Janelle [Monáe]’s in the second, and Josh O’Connor’s in this one. In that way, the detective plays a supporting role.
The other element of it that was at least unique to this when I started is, reading Agatha Christie books growing up, and then seeing adaptations of them, those adaptations were always period pieces set in England. So they always had a timeless, disconnected-from-our-current-reality vibe to them. With Knives Out, I said I’m going to throw out the idea of timelessness and just unapologetically write to the present moment. I’ve tried to do that with all three of these. For me, that’s what gives the red meat that I can dig into with writing these things. The mystery stuff is fun, but the way that the mystery can engage with things that are on all of our minds living in this, the year of our lord 2025, that’s where the real juice is for me.
It’s funny you mention the current references. When I got out of the premiere for the movie my coworkers were asking if The Verge is in Wake Up Dead Man and I had to break the news that we’d been replaced by Substack.
Oh god, I’m sorry. The Verge, as you know, I have it in my bookmarks, I check it every day. So it’ll be back.
For the timeless aspect, Wake Up Dead Man is interesting because in a lot of ways, particularly visually, it does have that out-of-time feel, but it still has those modern references. Was it a challenge to balance those two things?
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