The 69th BFI London Film Festival opened Wednesday evening with a lively screening of Rian Johnson’s third Knives Out film, Wake Up Dead Man, at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall.
Johnson was present with most of his extensive A-list cast including Kerry Washington, Cailee Spaeny, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis and Andrew Scott.
The crowd inside the Southbank Centre was just as starry, with bundles of familiar faces rolling into the theater to catch Johnson’s murder mystery threequel.
High-profile attendees included billion-dollar Barbie filmmaker Greta Gerwig, who made a surprise appearance at the screening, where she sat alongside her Narnia actress Emma Mackey. Andrew Lloyd Webber snuck in just before the screening, as did Running Man filmmaker and frequent BFI-dweller Edgar Wright.
Greta Gerwig on Wednesday at the ‘Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery‘ opening gala for the BFI London Film Festival
Kate Green/Getty Images for BFI
Also starring Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close and Jeremy Renner, Wake Up Dead Man follows Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc as he arrives at the scene of a murder at a rural church. Firebrand Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Brolin) has been killed, and his deputy, a young priest named Jud Duplenticy (O’Connor), is the main suspect. Blanc and Duplenticy join forces to solve the crime.
In his review out of TIFF, Deadline’s Damon Wise said that fans should not be alarmed at Johnson switching genres for the latest Knives Out flick, as Craig’s Benoit Blanc and a new all-star cast of characters keep the project entertaining: “Don’t take that to mean that all the fun’s been sucked out, though; far from it. As one character put it, ‘There’s obviously some Scooby-Doo sh*t going on round here.’ And wouldn’t you just know it, there damn well is.”
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery is set for release in select theaters November 26 before its streaming debut on Netflix on December 12.
The London Film Festival runs October 8-19.