Before Rian Johnson blasts back off to a galaxy far, far away to carve out his own Star Wars trilogy, the Last Jedi director decided to stop back on earth for a brief detour. The filmmaker is heading back to his crime genre roots with Knives Out – a contemporary whodunnit in the grand tradition of Agatha Christie, boasting an all-star cast and the bold visual style and storytelling audiences have come to expect from the guy who gave us Brick, Looper, and Episode VIII.
Leading the charge in cracking the case of Christopher Plummer's bumped-off patriarch will be Daniel Craig’s detective, the brilliantly-named Benoit Blanc – Johnson’s homage to Agatha Christie’s most iconic creation, Hercule Poirot. “Coming into it, being such a big fan of Poirot, it was hard to know even where to begin in terms of creating a new detective that’s going to hold a candle to that,” Johnson tells Empire in the new issue. “Benoit Blanc has some of the elements of Poirot, in that he’s a bit self-inflated, but there’s a warmth to him which shines through with Daniel.”
The influence of Poirot doesn’t just course through Craig’s character, but through the film has a whole. “I was thinking about the Agatha Christie movies that had Peter Ustinov as Poirot when when I was writing this,” he says. “They were my tonal touchstones, with that sense of an all-star cast, a bunch of actors you love to see, having a blast.”
Empire's 30th Anniversary Edition Covers
1 of 30#1 – Batman (Tim Burton, 1989)
2 of 30#2 – Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990)
3 of 30#3 – Terminator 2: Judgment Day (James Cameron, 1991)
4 of 30#4 – Reservoir Dogs
5 of 30#5 – Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
6 of 30#6 – The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont, 1994)
7 of 30#7 – Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995)
8 of 30#8 – Scream (Wes Craven, 1996)
9 of 30#9 – Titanic (James Cameron, 1997)
10 of 30#10 – Blade (Stephen Norrington, 1998)
11 of 30#11 – The Matrix (The Wachowskis, 1999)
12 of 30#12 – American Psycho
13 of 30#13 – The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring (Peter Jackson, 2001)
14 of 30#14 – Spirited Away
15 of 30#15 – Lost In Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003)
16 of 30#16 – Shaun Of The Dead (Edgar Wright, 2004)
17 of 30#17 – Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005)
18 of 30#18 – Pan's Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro, 2006)
19 of 30#19 – No Country For Old Men (The Coen Brothers, 2007)
20 of 30#20 – The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008)
21 of 30#21 – Avatar (James Cameron, 2009)
22 of 30#22 – Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010)
23 of 30#23 – Bridesmaids (Paul Feig, 2011)
24 of 30#24 – Avengers Assemble (Joss Whedon, 2012)
25 of 30#25 – Gravity (Alfonso Cuaron, 2013)
26 of 30#26 – Birdman (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2014)
27 of 30#27 – Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, 2015)
28 of 30#28 – Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, 2016)
29 of 30#29 – Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)
30 of 30#30 – Black Panther (Ryan Coogler, 2018)
Read more about Knives Out in the Special 30th Anniversary Edition of Empire, on newsstands now with 30 limited edition covers (see them all in the gallery above). Order the issue with the cover of your choice online here. Knives Out hits UK cinemas on 29 November.