Glass Onion: How Long Until Knives Out 3 Release Date? (Exclusive)

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery hit theaters over the holiday weekend, giving movie lovers a chance to see Rian Johnson’s latest murder mystery on the big screen before it arrives on Netflix on December 23. Glass Onion, the sequel to 2019’s Knives Out, is expected to haul in $15 million at the box office in its first 5 days playing. It’s a successful mark for Netflix, a company which is only recently starting to dabble with theatrical releases before streaming its properties to consumers’ homes. With many enjoying Glass Onion, the inevitable third Knives Out mystery may not be too far behind it. Glass Onion writer and director Rian Johnson, along with producer Ram Bergman, shared some insights about the Knives Out 3 process and timeline with ComicBook.com. 

“Well, it’s a good question,” Bergman said, when asked how long a third Knives Out movie will take to get made. “The first one, [Johnson] had the idea for years in his head, but he only put pen to paper like late January and by end of October we were filming it, which is a super fast. This movie, he really did not have an idea. He just stopped thinking and we were… From the moment he started really writing it, like, nine months later, a year later, we were filming. So, the good thing, he is very motivated to go do the next one as quickly as possible. But, you know, we’ll see how fast he is but this is gonna be a challenge. It’s gonna be a bigger challenge. So we’ll see how long it’s gonna take.”

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery was also plagued, like many other productions, with going to work in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the production prides itself on having zero recorded cases of the virus spreading on its set, the third Knives Out movie will have the benefit of getting to work while the successful protocols and other systems to manage working during the pandemic have already been developed and implemented.

Still, Johnson himself sees the daunting task of matching the quality of Knives Out and Glass Onion with the third installment. “Oh God, I mean, I have to, I still have to start writing Knives Out 3,” Johnson said. “I gotta figure out what the next Benoit Blanc mystery is, what it’s called, where it’s set. So, I got a lot of work to do. So, TBD, I don’t wanna give myself a deadline yet cause I definitely won’t meet it.” The full interview with Johnson can be found on ComicBook.com’s YouTube channel.

The first reactions to Glass Onion boasted the movie was better than Knives Out, in some opinions. One way Johnson seems to have outdone himself is in making Glass Onion similar to Knives Out in maintaining its charming, charismatic murder mystery core while it also stands on its own with a very unique, ambitious, and confident story. “I went back to the source of what inspired all of this, which is my love of Agatha Christie’s novels,” Johnson said. “What you just described, is exactly what she did in each book. She wasn’t just changing up the setting or the characters or what the murder was committed with. She was taking entirely new swings with every single story. To me that’s what’s genuinely exciting about the series, the idea that with every movie we can do that and find a way to truly surprise the audience. And then, you know, surprise ourselves too.”

Are you excited about the continuation of Benoit Blanc’s stories in the Knives Out franchise? Share your thoughts in the comment section or send them my way on Twitter! Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery hits Netflix on December 23.