Cailee Spaeny and Josh O’Connor To Star In ‘Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery’
The duo would join Daniel Craig for the forthcoming third Knives Out movie.
The third Knives Out was just confirmed to be coming to our screens in 2025, and now, following that, we can report that Cailee Spaeny and Josh O’Connor are on board for major roles in the forthcoming sequel.
Important Update: A previous version of this report incorrectly stated that Tom Hardy and Lindsay Lohan were eyed/in talks to star in the sequel. That is incorrect, and we apologize. Spaeny and O’Connor were later confirmed to be starring in subsequent reports by The Wrap and Deadline.
To bring you up to speed, following the success of the first Knives Out movie under Lionsgate, Rian Johnson sold the rights to two future installments exclusively to Netflix. The first of those installments was released in late 2022 as Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. That movie spent seven weeks in the global top 10s, picking up 301 million hours watched. The movie went on to be watched 161.50 million hours throughout the course of 2023, equating to 68.70 million views.
Since then, the third film has been kept secret until last week.
On Friday, Netflix exclusively revealed the title for the forthcoming movie and some new title graphics via its own TUDUM site, with the title being Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.
Following the announcement of the titles, Johnson posted on X saying, “I love everything about whodunnits, but one of the things I love most is how malleable the genre is. There’s a whole tonal spectrum from Carr to Christie, and getting to explore that range is one of the most exciting things about making Benoit Blanc movies,”
So far, the only confirmed actor for the forthcoming sequel is Daniel Craig, who will be reprising his role as Benoit Blanc.
We can now confirm that Cailee Spaeny and Josh O’Connor are being eyed and are in talks (if not already signed) for roles in the upcoming sequel.
**Cailee Spaeny** has been featured in two high-profile films recently: playing Jessie in A24’s Civil War and starring as the titular character in the Elvis Presley biopic Priscilla. Other prior credits include Bad Times at the El Royale and On the Basis of Sex.
**Josh O’Connor** is coming off the back of Challengers, where he starred alongside Zendaya and Mike Faist. The actor is also known for his role in two seasons of Netflix’s flagship series, The Crown, in which he played Prince Charles.
Filming schedules aren’t public yet, but Johnson said in a follow-up Tweet on Friday, “We’re about to go into production on the third one, and I’m very, very excited to share the title, which gives a little hint of where it’s going.”
We understand that filming for the new movie will begin as soon as June 10th, 2024.
Are you looking forward to the next Knives Out film on Netflix? Let us know in the comments.