\n\tThe name\u2019s Blanc, Benoit Blanc.<\/p>\n
\n\tDaniel Craig<\/a> kicked off the 2025 BFI London Film Festival<\/a> in style on Wednesday night at the star-studded premiere of Rian Johnson<\/a>\u2018s latest \u201cKnives Out\u201d caper, \u201cWake Up Dead Man.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tDirector Johnson took to the stage at Royal Festival Hall to introduce the film and was joined by stars Craig, Daryl McCormack, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Cailee Spaeny, Kerry Washington and Andrew Scott. Josh O\u2019Connor and Glenn Close also star, but weren\u2019t in attendance.<\/p>\n \n\tCraig flexed his signature charm when festival director Kristy Matheson asked him if he dives deeper into his character, the drawling detective Benoit Blanc, while preparing for each \u201cKnives Out\u201d installment. \u201cFirst of all, I just want to say thank you for having us,\u201d he said with a smile, before adding, \u201cNo is the answer,\u201d resulting in chuckles from the crowd. <\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI mean, look at this cast,\u201d added Josh Brolin, who plays the main antagonist, an evil priest with an axe to grind. \u201cRian is an amazing writer and an amazing director, so when you get the call to do something like this \u2014 play the worst person that cinema has ever seen \u2014 you go, that\u2019s right!\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe London audience \u2014\u00a0which included Greta Gerwig and Andrew Lloyd Webber \u2014\u00a0couldn\u2019t stop laughing throughout the two-hour crime comedy, which follows Blanc latest case, this time revolving around a charismatic priest, Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, and his devout congregation. O\u2019Connor plays priest-in-training with a dark past who threatens to interrupt Wicks\u2019 power-hungry plans.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWake Up Dead Man\u201d world premiered at Toronto Film Festival<\/a> in September, where it received a rapturous response. \u201cYou get called to be on a team of like all-stars, and you just sit there and watch each other breathe life into these incredibly written characters,\u201d Washington said at the premiere. \u201cWe were constantly in awe of each other, and inspiring each other, and goofing off, and trying to mess each other up. And it just was such a delight.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe film received positive reviews out of TIFF, with Variety\u2018s Owen Gleiberman writing it may be the franchise\u2019s sharpest entry yet. \u201cWake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery<\/a>\u201d is an enticingly clever and droll, nearly pitch-perfect piece of murder-mystery fun \u2014 a whodunit that lives up to the expectations set six years ago by \u2018Knives Out,’\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n