Clues from the original Knives Out suggest one of the upcoming Netflix sequels may actually take the form of a Benoit Blanc prequel. Rian Johnson’s Knives Out (2019) released to critical acclaim, bringing together an all-star ensemble cast and reviving the murder mystery genre that seems to be straight out of an Agatha Christie novel. Not only was the film great for the genre, but it regained an exciting platform for Johnson after his controversy with Star Wars: The Last Jedi two years prior.

Netflix has already picked up the rights to produce at least 2 sequels to Knives Out, with one already gaining traction with a growing cast list and rumors of filming starting in Greece. The first Knives Out film details Southern private detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) as he investigates the murder of wealthy murder mystery writer Harlan Thrombey, with his family as the prime suspects. The next films likely won’t involve any of the Thrombeys, following Blanc as he takes on new murder cases instead.

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While the first upcoming Knives Out movie will likely take place after the events of the Thrombey murder case, the third installation might be a prequel that follows Blanc’s most notable case. Knives Out already set up a possible storyline when the Thrombeys continually bring up Blanc’s famous case involving a tennis champion. A prequel version could take the place of Netflix’s confirmed third adaptation starring Daniel Crag as Benoit Blanc, so it wouldn’t interfere with the development of Knives Out 2. The tennis champ case storyline is already outlined in the first film, so it wouldn’t be out of reach for director Johnson to fully explore a pre-Thrombey Blanc.

Johnson revealed that the tennis champ’s backstory is a reference to a novel read in the movie Sleuth (1972), and he could very well put Blanc in the same scenario. In Sleuth, a murder mystery writer reads one of his latest novels, Death by Double Faults, about a tennis champion involved in a murder where the killer paced along the tennis court lines and disposed of the body in clay. Death by Double Faults isn’t a real book, so Johnson could possibly put Knives Out and Sleuth into the same universe, making Blanc the detective solving Sleuth’s fictional case. With the plot already outlined by Sleuth and canonically a part of Blanc’s history, a prequel would be an easy way for Netflix to profit from Benoit Blanc’s background, leading directly into the Thrombey case.

With the enthusiastic manner in which audiences praised Craig’s detective Benoit Blanc, a prequel would be an excellent way to learn more about the character and how he grew into the clever mind seen in Knives Out. Blanc is similar to Agatha Christie’s famous Belgian private detective Hercule Poirot, and Johnson could follow in her footsteps of detailing the case that made him famous. Christie’s The Mysterious Affair at Styles explains Poirot’s methods of “little grey cells” he uses in all his other cases, so it would be fascinating for Johnson to detail Blanc’s initial methods later seen in the Thrombey case. The Mysterious Affair at Styles was Poirot’s first big dive into being a private detective, so the prequel could simply go back in time to explain why Blanc is such a great detective in Knives Out while also giving more information on his mysterious background.

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Jordan Williams
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Jordan Williams is a Movie/TV Feature Senior Staff Writer for Screen Rant. She graduated from the University of Oregon in 2020 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Media Studies.

Jordan is based in Seattle, Washington and enjoys exploring the natural beauty the PNW has to offer. She runs on coffee and classic movies, taking pride in having watched every film on AFI’s 100 Greatest Films list and every Best Picture Oscar winner.

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