Wake Up Dead Man Will Premiere At The BFI London Film Festival

Before his Bond era drew to a close with 2021’s No Time to Die, Daniel Craig had already swapped spying for snooping: 2019’s Knives Out introduced us to Benoit Blanc, a curious detective with a moreish southern drawl. Created by Rian Johnson, the huge success of what was intended to be a standalone film spawned a $400 million, two-sequel deal with Netflix, with Johnson returning to write and direct both. In 2022, this brought us Glass Onion, starring an ensemble of Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick, Madelyn Cline, Kate Hudson, and Dave Bautista. And in 2025, instalment three: Wake Up Dead Man. Here’s everything we know so far.

Wake Up Dead Man: Plot, Cast, Release Date & More

In Knives Out, Blanc was enlisted to investigate the murder of bestselling author Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) in a case bursting with angry relatives, red herrings and dark academia. But Glass Onion swapped the brooding, moneyed estate aesthetic for sun-soaked Greece and egotistical billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton) and his band of so-called disruptors. The series’ third instalment, according to Netflix, is the darkest to date as far as tone is concerned – but rest assured a star-studded ensemble cast has signed on.

‘I love everything about whodunnits, but one of the things I love most is how malleable the genre is,’ creator and director Johnson wrote on X in May 2024, introducing the tonal shift for Wake Up Dead Man. ‘There’s a whole tonal spectrum from Carr to Christie, and getting to explore that range is one of the most exciting things about making Benoit Blanc movies.’

Josh O’Connor & Daniel Craig in Wake Up Dead Man. (Courtesy of Netflix © 2025)

What Will Happen In Wake Up Dead Man?

Wake Up Dead Man will centre on Benoit Blanc as he unravels yet another mysterious, high-stakes case. As far as the details are concerned, Netflix is keeping things cryptic – but crypts will certainly be involved…

Joining Rian Johnson on the writing team this time around is Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro, who also has Frankenstein set for release in October. An Victorian England obsessive and self-described ‘Jack the Ripper aficionado’, we’re expecting Wake Up Dead Man to be infused with Gothic thrills galore – the kind we are used to seeing in Crimson Peak (2015), The Shape of Water (2017) and Nightmare Alley (2021).

And from what we have seen of Wake Up Dead Man thus far, it all fits the bill. After the Greek island antics of Glass Onion, Wake Up Dead Man takes us back to New England, and the trailer drops us in an overgrown cemetery. The action centres on a murder amid a church congregation in a small hamlet in leafy upstate New York, with eager young priest Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor) the implicated man of God. Duplenticy is sent to the hamlet to assist the charismatic local priest Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), whose flock of congregants is shocked when a seemingly impossible murder is discovered.

Progressing from Knives Out and Glass Onion, Wake Up Dead Man ‘charts [Blanc’s] most personal journey yet,’ Johnson tells Netflix. ‘He’s forced to engage with the case — and with himself — in a way that’s completely new.’

‘The “impossible crime”,’ Blanc says in voice over. ‘For a man of reason, this is the Holy Grail.’ Cue gothic shots of the church, pews and O’Connor seemingly in the murderous act. But, of course, it can’t be that simple: ‘impossible crime’ indicates there’s something much more mysterious going on.

‘This was dressed as a miracle. But it’s just a murder,’ Blanc continues. ‘And I solve murders.’ It seems Blanc will be forced not just to unravel a crime, but to reckon with a denialist congregation that perhaps sees the murder as righteous… Watch the trailer below.

‘Themes of guilt, mystery, morality, and fallible humanity all feel right at home in a church, with a man of God in the center of the mix,’ Johnson says on the setting. ‘I have strong feelings about faith: both my own personal experience and how it intersects with our country’s cultural and civic life, and the ways that intersection touches all of us differently. So it felt like rich ground for a good story.’

Setting it here steps back in time: away from the ultra-glossy Glass Onion, before the dark academia style Knives Out and deeper into the literary lineage of the murder mystery Johnson is so invested in. According to the director, Wake Up Dead Man ‘gets back to the real origins of the genre, which predate Agatha Christie, going back to Edgar Allan Poe. It’s still a Benoit Blanc mystery, so it’s funny and fun, but it’s set in an old stone church, there are lots of graveyards.’

As the only character to appear in all three of Johnson’s murder mysteries, Craig is best placed to comment on this moving, evolving murder mystery picture. He tells Netflix: ‘What Rian’s movies do best is subvert the genre. You start off thinking you’re watching an old-fashioned sort of Agatha Christie-type mystery — but then it shifts, and you realize you’re watching something entirely different.’

Like Knives Out (Radiohead) and Glass Onion (The Beatles), Wake Up Dead Man shares its name with a song. ‘Wake Up Dead Man’ is a sombre acoustic track on U2’s 1997 album, Pop, in which singer Bono begs Jesus to return to Earth and end world suffering. According to Netflix, listening closely may just beget some clues. Here’s the third verse for an idea of the tone:

Jesus, were you just around the corner?

Did you think to try and warn her?

Were you working on something new?

If there’s an order in all of this disorder

Is it like a tape recorder?

Can we rewind it just once more?

Daniel Craig in Wake Up Dead Man. (Courtesy of Netflix © 2025)

Wake Up Dead Man Cast

Joining Daniel Craig in the lead role is a brand new ensemble cast of suspects. The cast list we know so far is as follows:

• Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc
• Josh O’Connor as Reverend Jud Duplenticy
• Glenn Close as Martha Delacroix
• Josh Brolin as Monsignor Jefferson Wicks
• Mila Kunis as Geraldine Scott, police chief
• Jeremy Renner as Dr. Nat Sharp
• Kerry Washington as Vera Draven
• Andrew Scott as Lee Ross
• Cailee Spaeny as Simone Vivane
• Daryl McCormack as Cy Draven
• Thomas Haden Church as Samson Holt

Dream dinner party? You’re bang on: Johnson has described his casting process as akin to ‘throwing a dinner party’, hand selecting stars for their chemistry and interpersonal relationships as well as their on-screen gravitas.

‘We’ve been very lucky with each of these movies to have gathered some of my favorite actors on the planet, and that’s absolutely the case here,’ Johnson tells Netflix. ‘They’re also all lovely folks who get along, which is the dinner party aspect of it. When you’re making an ensemble movie like this, I think that’s key.’

Intriguingly there is a strong showing from British and Irish actors despite the rural New York setting: O’Connor, Scott, McCormack… Will they keep their native voices, or can we expect more playful tones like Craig’s now-iconic accent?

Where Was It Filmed?

Netflix is keeping the specific filming locations – and setting, for that matter – under wraps, but Wake Up Dead Man was filmed in London from June to August 2024, as marked by a Tweet from Johnson.

Aaaaand we’re off! Today is day 1 of shooting on the next Benoit Blanc mystery “Wake Up Dead Man” – see you on the other side. pic.twitter.com/Napfvq1zXT

— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) June 10, 2024

The exterior of the church we see in the trailer is Holy Innocents Church (Church Rd, High Beech, Loughton IG10 4BF), a local church surrounded by greenery in north east London’s Epping Forest. But if you step inside, you will see a different picture than the one painted in Wake Up Dead Man: the cavernous chapel we see on screen was built by production designer Rick Heinrichs.

As for the  graveyard, we’re not totally clear just yet, though the ancient Epping Forest certainly would make for an atmospheric filming location.

Release Date

New news: Wake Up Dead Man will have its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival on 6 September, followed by its UK premiere at the BFI London Film Festival opening gala on 8 October 2025.

The film will then play in select UK cinemas from 28 November, before releasing globally on Netflix on 12 December 2025.