Netflix Is Being Dominated By A New Release Movie
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Daniel Craig’s new whodunnit Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery just hit Netflix last week, and the sequel to 2019’s Knives Out is already dominating the streamer. The murder mystery is currently the #1 streamed movie on Netflix, leaving in its wake heavy hitters like Bullet Train, Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical, and The Christmas Chronicles. Glass Onion enjoyed a limited theatrical release in November, but didn’t hit the streamer until last Friday: the day before Christmas Eve.
Daniel Craig leads the cast of Glass Onion as Benoit Blanc, a private detective whose professional victories have earned him a great deal of celebrity. Still, it’s a shock to billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton) when Blanc shows up as a guest for a weekend outing at his private island.
Summoned to the island with a series of custom made puzzle boxes, Bron’s circle of friends are an eclectic bunch you wouldn’t normally imagine spending time together. There’s the gun-toting men’s rights activist Duke (Dave Bautista) and his bombshell girlfriend Whiskey (Madelyn Cline); the Connecticut governor and senate hopeful Claire (Kathryn Hahn); the has-been supermodel Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson) and her overworked assistant Peg (Jessica Henwick); cutting edge scientist Lionel Toussaint (Leslie Odom Jr.); and Bron’s enigmatic old business partner Andi (Janelle Monáe).
Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc seems sheepishly out of place in Glass Onion‘s group of old friends, but it’s a good thing he’s there. Bron has invited them there for a theatrical “murder mystery weekend,” but before the first evening is up, one of them is dead for real. Of course, just as the case was in the first Knives Out, not everything is as it seems.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)
When 2019’s Knives Out — with a production budget of $40 million — turned into a runaway hit that brought in $312 million, writer/director’s Rian Johnson’s teases about a possible sequel became a reality. As Deadline reported at the time, in 2021 Netflix outbid all the other interested parties for the rights to Knives Out 2 and 3, with Daniel Craig first reprising the role for Glass Onion and eventually for the third film.
Unlike most sequels, particularly in the current glut of franchise films, you don’t have to have seen Knives Out to immerse yourself in the new film. Daniel Craig’s Blanc is the only character to return in Glass Onion from the first film, though he actually isn’t the only actor to return. Noah Segan — who played Trooper Wagner in Knives Out and has appeared in every feature film directed by Rian Johnson, dating back to 2005’s Brick — plays the slacker Derol who hangs out on Bron’s island and is just generally awkward.
Equal parts hilarious and suspenseful, Glass Onion is as engaging as the original. If you’re a Netflix subscriber and haven’t already contributed to its dominance on the streamer, make sure you get a chance to check it out.
