Daniel Craig was Rian Johnson’s dream choice to play Benoit Blanc in “Knives Out.” But it nearly wasn’t meant to be.
In an interview with IndieWire, Johnson talked about his latest (and hopefully not final) film in the “Knives Out” series: “Wake Up Dead Man.” Craig returns in the film as masterful, Southern detective Blanc — though a “James Bond” scheduling conflict nearly kept this actor/character union from happening.
“When we were first trying to get ‘Knives Out’ made, Daniel wasn’t available. He was doing the ‘Bond’ movies,” Johnson revealed. “He was my first choice for it, but he was a hard ‘not available’ because he was on the Bond movies. So, we went to other people for it. We got a bunch of ‘no’s about Benoit Blanc.”
Johnson wouldn’t go into who exactly turned down Benoit Blanc, surely now a coveted role as a recognizable character anchoring a popular franchise. The writer/director did, however, note that he doesn’t “think any of these people are tearing their hair out at all.”
“I’ll reiterate that the instant there was some delay with the Bond movie and Daniel had a window, the instant he became available, I leapt. Thank God. Thank God Daniel got it,” Johnson continued. “The moment Daniel read the script and said yes, it was six weeks until we were shooting. So the whole movie was put together really, really quickly. Which, actually, with casting helps. It’s not, can you save us a slot six months from now? And then maybe they get a Marvel movie or something. It’s, can you come to Boston next week?”
Johnson has been vocal about his love for the murder mystery franchise, saying he wants to keep making them as long as the ideas keep flowing. The series is a big commitment, one that has kept him tied up for the better part of the decade (his last movie outside this series was 2017’s “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”).
The filmmaker also teased that he has another original project on the way after “Wake Up Dead Man,” which will be the final part of his two-movie Netflix deal for the “Knives Out” series. However, Johnson reaffirmed his interest to continue working with Craig on the murder mysteries, so long as both keep finding reasons to come back. The director compared Benoit Blanc to Indiana Jones, saying he can’t imagine anyone but Craig in the role.
“For me, personally, these movies are working with Daniel. It’s a partnership,” Johnson said. “The instant either one of us feels even slightly like not doing it, we’ll stop doing it.”
