Following the announcement of Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, new information has come to light about the actors who may appear in it. What’s On Netflix reported, and The Hollywood Reporter confirmed, that Josh O’Connor and Cailee Spaeny will join Daniel Craig in the movie. Writer-director Rian Johnson re-shared the news on social media, seemingly confirming the casting.
The movie’s official social media account jumped in to react to all the discussion about casting for Wake Up Dead Man. “OK everybody just calm down,” the account wrote.
OK everybody just calm down
— Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (@KnivesOut) May 28, 2024
O’Connor played Prince Charles on Netflix’s The Crown and recently appeared in the tennis movie Challengers from director Luca Guadagnino. As for Spaeny, she recently starred as the title character in the Sofia Coppola movie Priscilla. She also played a lead character in Alex Garland’s Civil War and is set to appear in the next Alien film, Alien: Romulus.
Very little is known about Wake Up Dead Man, but it will be another whodunnit murder mystery from Johnson, and it’s being made for Netflix. The Knives Out films are known for their ensemble casts, so O’Connor and Spaeny are just two members of the cast we know about so far. Craig plays the detective Benoit Blanc, and he’s the only major character that returns in each new entry, as he’s called back to solve yet another high-stakes murder mystery.
2019’s Knives Out starred Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, LaKeith Stanfield, Katherine Langford, Jaeden Martell, and Christopher Plummer. The 2021 sequel, Glass Onion, featured Edward Norton, Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista, Janelle Monae, Kathryn Hahn, Jessica Henwick, and Leslie Odom Jr.
Knives Out was released theatrically, but Netflix swooped in and paid Johnson and Craig a reported $100 million each to put the Knives Out sequels on the streaming platform. Netflix is said to have paid around $470 million for the sequels, which is more than the estimated market value. A report said Netflix intentionally overpaid for the sequels to take marketshare away from theaters.
Wake Up Dead Man comes to Netflix in 2025.
