Thanks to Rian Johnson, the film world has a new detective to call when an unusual mystery pops up. Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc debuted in 2019’s Knives Out to investigate the death of author Harlan Thrombey, and he’ll be back later this year for Netflix’s Knives Out 2. Ahead of that highly-anticipated sequel’s arrival, Johnson has joked about Knives Out crossing over with the Scream film series, and honestly, I would be down for this to happen.
After an 11-year hiatus, the Scream franchise made its big return last month with the simply-titled Scream, just like the 1996 movie that started it all. Pleased with the fifth installment’s critical and commercial performance, Paramount and Spyglass are moving forward with Scream 6, but Rian Johnson would rather look further into the future to see how he can mix Scream and Knives Out together. Take a look at what he posted on Twitter:
Rian Johnson is obviously joking with this Scream 8 pitch, but mashing this horror franchise with Knives Out could actually be pretty cool if Paramount Pictures and Netflix worked out an arrangement. Think about it: if you put Benoit Blanc on the case, he’d figure out who’s now operating as Ghostface faster than anyone else. Now that I think about it, if Blanc were the investigator assigned to the case, we could end up getting a Scream 8 that’s only 30 minutes long.
Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS for Scream (the new one) are in the next paragraph!
Rian Johnson sharing a Scream 8 pitch is even funnier when you take into account how the new Scream movie references him (he was supposed to cameo, but it didn’t work out). Within that universe, Johnson directed Stab 8, the most recent entry in the film series inspired by the Ghostface murders. Much like how Star Wars: The Last Jedi was received, Rian Johnson’s work on Stab 8 polarized fans, to the point that Scream’s main antagonists embark on a killing spree to provide, in their eyes, more fitting source material for a future Stab movie to draw on.
While it’s not impossible the day could come that Rian Johnson directs a Scream movie, whether it involves Benoit Blanc or not, for now, he has enough on his plate. Right now, he’s in the middle of putting Knives Out 2 together following the sequel finishing principal photography last September. In addition to Daniel Craig, the main cast includes Dave Bautista, Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Kate Hudson, Madelyn Cline, Jessica Henwick and Ethan Hawke. The first Knives Out 2 footage was released by Netflix last week, and the sequel is expected to be released sometime in the fall.
Rian Johnson is also already on deck to make Knives Out 3 for Netflix someday, and while there was a time where he was attached to write and direct the first movie in a new Star Wars trilogy, it’s been several years since there any major updates on that creative endeavor. Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for more news about Johnson’s projects, and Scream fans can still catch the latest entry in theaters now, among other new movie releases.