Rian Johnson, our guest on this episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast — which was recorded in front of an audience at the Newport Beach Film Festival immediately before the fest presented him with its Director Award in recognition of his latest film, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery —has been described by GQ as “one of modern Hollywood’s most unpredictable directors,” by the New York Times as “a pop-culture savant with technique to spare” and by his Poker Face collaborator Natasha Lyonne as “one of our greatest living auteurs.”
He also directed three of the greatest episodes of one of the greatest TV shows of all time, the AMC drama series Breaking Bad. And he created and wrote or directed five episodes of the aforementioned Poker Face, a comedy series which, until a few weeks ago, streamed on Peacock, and now is looking for a new home.
Recently named one of TIME’s 100 most influential people in the world, Johnson also has won Directors Guild and National Board of Review awards and been nominated for Producers Guild, Writers Guild, Golden Globe, Critics Choice, BAFTA, Spirit and Emmy awards. And he twice has been nominated for an Oscar —for best original screenplay for Knives Out and for best adapted screenplay for Glass Onion — with a third nom, in the adaptation category, quite possibly to follow for Wake Up Dead Man, a murder mystery sequel to Knives Out and Glass Onion that had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival back in September, opened in select theaters last Friday and will drop on Netflix on Dec. 12.
Over the course of this conversation, Johnson reflects on his entire life and career, including the project for which he is best known, The Last Jedi, and the polarized response to it from the Star Wars fandom. While one might assume that the vicious response to The Last Jedi from a faction of the fandom had been hurtful, Johnson insists that was not the case. “I’m a lifelong Star Wars fan,” he emphasizes. “I know the deal. I know that Star Wars fans are passionate about this stuff.
We love the stuff that we love, we hate the stuff that we hate, and we fight about it, and that’s been happening since the original trilogy.” He continues, “I’ve talked to so many people over the years since we made that movie who have such deep connections to Star Wars and who have deep connections to that movie, and so it’s been the most positive experience I’ve ever had with anything I’ve made, in terms of interacting with people who have seen it. I came out the other end of it loving the Star Wars fandom more than I did even going into it.”
As for the Knives Out series of films, centered on detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), that has dominated his life since The Last Jedi? That, for Johnson, was, as much as Star Wars, a nod to the content that he favored as a child.
“The murder mystery is a genre that I really love, it’s a form that I really love, so I had been cooking for about a decade a notion of how I would attack it, to do one one, and I had some very specific structural ideas of things it would be fun to try. Finally, after Star Wars, I sat down and wrote this little murder mystery and thought, ‘Well, this will be a one-off!’”
Johnson recalls that many were highly skeptical that the first Knives Out would find an audience, and that Johnson was making smart use of his newfound higher profile. “When we were trying to sell it to studios, everyone was like, ‘Oh, a murder mystery, huh?’ And even friends who I showed the script to were like, ‘You’re coming off of Star Wars dude, you sure you want to do just a little murder mystery movie?’”
Three Benoit Blanc films later, he can’t imagine not making more: “I’m very, very lucky, with Daniel, to have a creative partner in this who’s on the same page.
I feel like, for me, the only kind of restrictions are first of all that audiences are still digging them, and second that Daniel and I feel like we’re trying something different and reaching for something new and challenging ourselves and thus hopefully giving you guys something new every time.
The instant we feel like we’re just turning the crank on another one, we’ll stop —but I don’t see that happening anytime soon, and I would be thrilled if, amongst other things, I can come back and keep making these the rest of my life. I’d be a happy man.”
One thing he won’t be doing, however, is a Knives Out Muppet movie. “On the Internet,” he volunteered, “the notion of a Knives Out Muppet movie comes up a lot, and I wanted to get you guys together here so that I could explain why that’s a bad idea. It’s not a ‘bad idea,’ but I love and respect Muppet movies too much, and also Benoit Blanc movies.
They’re so different. The reality is, if you put Muppets in a Benoit Blanc movie, it would feel totally wrong because they would be getting murdered.
The alternative is to just stick Benoit Blanc into a Muppet movie, which admittedly would be very fun, but would kind of break the reality of what Blanc is. Which is all to say: I would just love to do a regular awesome Muppet movie!”