Hollywood continues to push intellectual properties, reboots, sequels and prequels, but to the director of ‘Daggers in the back: The mystery of Glass Onion’ (Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery), Rian Johnson, does not like the idea of making it clear in the title that it is a sequelimplying that the maneuver is an imposition of Netflix.
During an interview with The Atlantic, Johnson said that he strove to make both the Netflix movie and Lionsgate’s 2019 original hit, “Stabs in the Back,” complete stories that can exist on their own. Daniel Craig, who plays tenacious detective Benoit Blanc, is the only cast member to return for the sequel:
“I have endeavored to make them independent. Honestly, it pisses me off having ‘Puñales por el back’ in the title. Do you know? I want it to be called Glass Onion. I get it, and I want everyone who liked the first movie to know that this is the next in the series, but also, the whole draw to me is that it’s like a new novel available every time. But now there is a gravity of a thousand suns towards serialized storytelling.
Another topic of debate surrounding the film was Netflix’s decision to give it a one-week theatrical release, a strategy that chief executive Reed Hastings has admitted could have made more money from it and Johnson has said he would have preferred a longer duration.
“I would love for it to have been in theaters longer and I would have loved for it to have been in more theaters. But also, I appreciate Netflix doing this, because it was a huge effort on their part and the theater chains to understand each other and make this happen. I hope it works out very well so that we can show that they can complement each other.”
The cast of ‘The Mystery of the Glass Onion’ also includes Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick, Madelyn Cline, Kate Hudson, and Dave Bautista and it has become a trending topic several days after its premiere on the platform.