“It wasn’t a break in the sense of ‘Oh God, I’ve got
to get out this Star Wars machine.’ It was kind of
just the next thing I wanted to do,” says Johnson,
who initially planned “Knives Out” as his follow-
up to 2012’s “Looper.”
“But there was something really nice about the
contrast of doing a very dialogue-based movie.
I could hire all these fantastic actors and give
them a lot of words. It’s just been an essential
part of ‘Star Wars’ that to some degree you’re
always trying to figure out the simplest way
to say any thought,” says Johnson, who’s also
developing a new “Star Wars” trilogy. “In that
way, it ended up being a really invigorating and
exciting film to make coming off of ‘Star Wars.’”
And there are few more delicious acting
showcases than a murder mystery. The
ensemble cast includes Daniel Craig, Chris Evans,
Jamie Lee Curtis, Lakeith Stanfield, Toni Collette
and Michael Shannon.
“You’re going to see big movie stars just having
the time of their lives up on the screen,” says
Johnson. “There was something really appealing
about having a character-based movie that wasn’t
based on some heavy character arc but character-
based in terms of a bunch of fun characters.”
It’s often said that the new movie star is IP. This
fall, movie stars might be the new movie stars.