Daniel Craig is mostly known among the fans for being the highest-paid James Bond actor. Besides that, the Munich actor also contributed significantly to modernizing the classic whodunit thriller genre with his Knives Out film series. The first Knives Out film, released in 2019 was a huge commercial and critical hit. However, on the release of its sequel Glass Onion by Netflix, both Craig and director Rian Johnson were highly disappointed.
Following Knives Out‘s success, when Rian Johnson planned to make a sequel with the character Benoit Blanc, Netflix outbid everyone to acquire the rights to multiple sequels for a mind-boggling $469 Million. Unfortunately, this deal killed the possibility for the sequel to get a wide theatrical release.
And as per the latest reports, Daniel Craig had a heated exchange with Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos over the limited release of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.
Daniel Craig trashed Netflix’s business model despite getting a record salary
Although Netflix bought the rights to the Knives Out sequels, it looks like director Rian Johnson and Daniel Craig hoped Glass Onion to get a proper theatrical release by the OTT giant. As per a recent update by Puck‘s Matt Belloni, Craig tried hard to convince Netflix’s Ted Sarandos by pointing to the audience reception at the TIFF 2022 premiere but could not succeed.
Despite getting the widest theatrical release of any Netflix project, it was only released to 600 theaters for a week. Craig was highly confident of a huge success on a proper release and had a heated confrontation against Ted Sarandos for following the old Netflix model at the TIFF 2022 premiere.
It’s been two years since Sarandos had a testy exchange with Daniel Craig at the Knives Out 2 premiere in Toronto. According to two sources, Craig pointed to the ovation for the film as evidence that it was made for a large group audience and should thus get a longer window in theaters. Ted repeated the usual ‘not our model’ mantra, which prompted Craig to reply with an expletive unfit for a family newsletter. (It was a variation on ‘Your model is f**ked.’)
As per The Numbers, Glass Onion collected $15 Million from its box office run before getting worldwide success on the streaming platform. But Puck added that even after the dispute, Daniel Craig took home a record $50 million each for Glass Onion and the upcoming sequel Wake Up Dead Man.
Although Daniel Craig’s salary for Knives Out is still undisclosed, the Spectre actor’s salary of $100 Million for the two sequels made him the highest-paid actor of 2021 (see Variety). On the other hand, despite repeated complaints against Netflix’s model, Ted Sarandos added that their target audience was always the subscribers and their debatable structure will not change soon.
How much do we know about Wake Up Dead Man?
Even before the release of Knives Out, Rian Johnson expressed his interest to make more sequels centering around Benoit Blanc. Following the release of Glass Onion, now the Star Wars: The Last Jedi filmmaker is all set to collaborate with Daniel Craig again for the upcoming Wake Up Dead Man.
In May of this year, Rian Johnson also released a brief teaser confirming the next Benoit Blanc mystery. Similar to the past two installments, Wake Up Dead Man will also feature an ensemble cast including Jeremy Renner, Mila Kunis, Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Kerry Washington, Cailee Spaeny, Andrew Scott, and Josh Brolin besides the James Bond star (via Variety).
It will be exciting to see if Daniel Craig’s past feedback to Ted Sarandos can motivate Netflix to give a bigger release to the upcoming mystery. There is also a possibility that we may see the film series finding a new production house after the 2025 film to grab a bigger box office figure.
Wake Up Dead Man will be released sometime in 2025.
