Rian Johnson’s third entry in the Knives Out franchise, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, takes the series into darker, more overtly religious territory while retaining its whodunit mechanics and comic touches. Premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, the film will open in theaters in November and arrive on Netflix on Dec. 12.
Set in the fictional upstate New York town of Chimney Rock, Wake Up Dead Man centers on a murder at Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude, a Catholic parish run by the cantankerous Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin). The story is told largely through the eyes of Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O'Connor), a newly reassigned priest whose own past — including an onetime boxing incident that led to a death — shapes his earnest, redemptive view of faith. A murder on Good Friday draws veteran sleuth Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) into the case, but Blanc plays a smaller, more peripheral role than in previous franchise entries as Johnson shifts the narrative focus to Jud’s moral journey.
Johnson warned at the TIFF premiere that the film "wasn't going to be exactly like the previous two installments," saying the production was "going back to church." Wake Up Dead Man leans into gothic and malevolent tones: it is about belief, shame and the ways leaders can manipulate congregations. Monsignor Wicks inherited the parish from his family, preaches with humiliation rather than comfort and commands a devout following whose motives and histories become central to the investigation.
The ensemble cast supplies the usual array of potential killers and complicated allegiances. Glenn Close appears as Martha, a longtime servant of Perpetual Fortitude who wears black and handles the parish’s filings. Thomas Haden Church plays Samson, the groundskeeper devoted to Martha and the church. Jeremy Renner portrays Nat Sharp, a physician whose private life and resentments are reshaped by Wicks’ influence. Kerry Washington is Vera Draven, a lawyer tethered to the parish by familial obligation. Daryl McCormack plays Cy, the illegitimate son whose political ambitions make him vulnerable to rhetoric from the pulpit. Andrew Scott is Lee Ross, an ex–sci-fi novelist who retreated to Chimney Rock, and Cailee Spaeny plays a prodigious cellist in search of a miracle to soothe chronic pain.
The film’s murder mystery remains central but is infused with meditations about why people commit to faith and how guilt and grace operate in communities. Johnson framed his approach to that theme in publicity and public appearances: he acknowledged a debt to Edgar Allan Poe’s moodier work and to G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown stories. At a post-screening Q&A, Johnson described Chesterton’s influence as a "peanut butter and chocolate fit," pairing the moral questions of religious fiction with the structural pleasures of a murder mystery. Wake Up Dead Man also includes explicit nods to mystery tradition; characters reference John Dickson Carr’s The Hollow Man and a parish book club reads Agatha Christie alongside other genre touchstones.
Craig’s Benoit Blanc appears and helps untangle the crime, but the film is constructed as more of a two-hander between Blanc and Father Jud, with Jud driving many of the emotional stakes. Johnson said that after making Glass Onion with Craig, the collaborators discussed pursuing a darker, more grounded tone for a third film, a direction that altered the series’ visual palette and narrative priorities. The result is less cozy than 2019’s Knives Out and less glossy than 2022’s Glass Onion, favoring gothic architecture, moral unease and a sharper interrogation of charismatic leadership.
Netflix’s 2021 acquisition of the Knives Out sequels for $450 million covered two follow-ups; Wake Up Dead Man is the second film in that deal. Johnson has said he currently has no firm idea for a fourth installment but that he would continue the series "as long as I can." The director and cast have signaled the franchise was always intended to explore different tones and milieus, using the detective framework as a way to probe contemporary cultural and social questions.
Critical response from the TIFF screening noted the film’s tonal shift and praised O’Connor’s portrayal of Jud as a sympathetic moral center, while observing that Johnson balances darker themes with the genre’s trademark puzzles and set pieces. Wake Up Dead Man’s November theatrical release will test how audiences respond to the franchise’s turn toward religious inquiry and gothic atmosphere before the film reaches Netflix viewers in December.