Director Rian Johnson's Knives Out thrilled audiences last year with its star-studded cast and intriguing Agatha Christie-style murder mystery plot. Fans quickly called for a sequel, with Johnson confirming earlier this year that Knives Out 2 is indeed happening, but perhaps not quite as expected. Well, Johnson discussed the follow-up in a recent interview, confirming that it is best not to think of the movie as Knives Out 2, but rather the continuing adventures of Daniel Craig's world-famous private detective, Benoit Blanc.

"I'm actually writing another Knives Out. It's been such a mindf**k, because I sat on the idea for the first one for 10 years. And with this one, I'm starting with a blank page. It's not really a Knives Out sequel. I need to come up with a title for it so I can stop calling it The Knives Out Sequel because it's just Daniel Craig as the same detective with a totally new cast."

Rian Johnson is quick to highlight the difficulties in writing the second movie compared with the first, with the filmmaker now starring at a blank page as opposed to the decade's worth of ideas that he poured into Knives Out. He also confirms again that the movie will involve a totally different cast of characters, aside from Craig's Benoit Blanc, with the detective employing his unorthodox tactics to a whole new murder mystery.

By the sounds of it, Johnson is looking to separate the movie entirely from its predecessor, with the follow-up very unlikely to be called Knives Out 2, perhaps instead eventually being given a title that refers to Blanc. Might we suggest A Blanc Slate.

A Knives Out follow-up was greenlit back in February and sees Rian Johnson return as director as well as Daniel Craig returning as the thickly accented detective. Johnson has asserted before that the movie will not be a direct sequel as such saying, "In my mind, I don't even think of it in terms of like a sequel. To me it's just, ever since we started working on this I was like, 'Look, if we can keep this going, the same way Agatha Christie wrote a bunch of Poirot novels. I mean, do that with Blanc and keep making more mysteries.' Whole new cast, whole new location, whole new mystery. It's just another Benoit Blanc mystery and it seems like there's just so many different things you can do with it, you know? It seems like it'd be really fun."

The first Knives Out is a fun, modern-day murder mystery where everyone is a suspect. When renowned crime novelist Harlan Thrombey is found dead at his estate just after his 85th birthday, the inquisitive and debonair Detective Benoit Blanc is mysteriously enlisted to investigate. From Harlan's dysfunctional family to his devoted staff, Blanc sifts through a web of red herrings and self-serving lies to uncover the truth behind Harlan's untimely death. The movie features an ensemble cast that the sequel will struggle to top, including Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, Lakeith Stanfield, Katherine Langford, Jaeden Martell, and Christopher Plummer. This comes to us from Interview Magazine.