The Opening Night Gala of the BFI London Film Festival is a coveted slot, usually reserved for the buzziest of buzzy movies in town. In recent years, we’ve seen the likes of Steve McQueen’s Blitz, Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, and Jeymes Samuel’s The Harder They Fall kick off the Big Smoke’s annual cinematic celebration in style. And for the upcoming 69th edition of LFF, the BFI are really bringing out the big guns, as today they’ve announced that Rian Johnson’s hotly anticipated Knives Out threequel Wake Up Dead Man will be heading to London — and partner cinemas around the UK — to make its international premiere at the fest.
Having previously screened Knives Out itself at London Film Festival and made its sequel, Glass Onion, the Opening Night Gala back in 2022, it doesn’t take Benoit Blanc to deduce that the BFI — much like us — are big fans of Rian Johnson and his all-star murder mysteries. As such, it’s no surprise to see that Johnson’s latest, set for a 12 December Netflix release boasting an extraordinary line-up including the likes of *deep breath* Josh O’ Connor, Cailee Spaeny, Andrew Scott, Glenn Close, Kerry Washington, Josh Brolin, Thomas Haden Church, Jeremy Renner, and Mila Kunis, has been picked to get this year’s festival underway. “We’re honoured to be opening the BFI London Film Festival with Wake Up Dead Man,” said Johnson in a statement shared by the BFI. “London is the birthplace of the golden age of detective fiction and it’s a thrill to be back!”
Beyond what we saw in the first teaser (Josh O’Connor as a dodgy priest, Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc talking about “the impossible crime”, a tease that this is the southern sleuth’s ‘most dangerous case yet’), we still don’t actually have a clue what exactly Wake Up Dead Man is all about — no matter how much we try to convince ourselves this is going to be Johnson’s answer to A Haunting In Venice. The good news then is that we don’t actually have too long to wait now before we find out. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery will open the BFI London Film Festival on 8 October, simultaneously screening in partner cinemas across the UK, before hitting Netflix on 12 December. The game’s afoot, folks!
