NEW YORK – The first two Knives Out films reimagined the whodunnit with wit, whimsy and star-studded casting.

But the third film enters more philosophical territory as super sleuth Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) solves a murder mystery in a small Catholic community – and the story explores a crisis of faith.

Debuting on Netflix on Dec 12, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery sees the good detective once again sifting through a string of murder suspects, this time following the puzzling death of a divisive priest played by Josh Brolin.

Josh O’Connor (Challengers, 2024) portrays a younger priest who becomes the chief suspect, with the rest of the ensemble cast including Glenn Close, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington and Andrew Scott.

At a New York screening in November, Rian Johnson, the movie’s 51-year-old writer and director, says the idea came from a discussion with Craig after the premiere of Glass Onion (2022), the sequel to the original Knives Out (2019).

“We both agreed that we were proud of Glass Onion, but it would feel really good to kind of ground the next one.

“And for me, that meant making it personal. So, I had this idea of making it about faith and religion.

“I grew up very Christian and I’m not a believer any more,” explains the American film-maker, who received two Oscar nominations, for Best Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay, for the earlier movies.

“But when I was younger, my personal relationship with Christ was very ingrained in my identity, and so today, it’s something I have very deep, very personal, very complicated feelings about.”

Folding these themes into a light-hearted, tentpole franchise was daunting, admits Johnson, who also wrote and directed science-fiction blockbusters such as Looper (2012) and Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017).

But Craig was on board from the start. “Daniel was, like, ‘Sounds great, let&rsqu...