Boxer-turned priest Josh O’Connor offers Daniel Craig some spiritual guidance to help solve an “impossible crime” he’s been accused of in the latest Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery trailer that dropped on Monday.
“You were the only one on stage with the Monsignor at the time,” local police chief Geraldine Scott, played by Mila Kunis, tells O’Connor in the trailer. O’Connor plays Father Jud Duplenticy who is joining forces with detective Benoit Blanc (Craig) to solve the mysterious murder of charismatic-yet-charming Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, played by Josh Brolin.
“Everyone thinks I did it. I didn’t do it,” Duplenticy, who at one point in the trailer literally has blood on his hands after been sent to assist Wicks in a backwater small-town church with secrets, declares in the third installment of the Netflix murder mystery franchise. In his review of Wake Up Dead Man for The Hollywood Reporter, chief film critic David Rooney wrote: “Blanc, of course, is the suave Southern gent with the stylish suits and exaggerated drawl played by Daniel Craig with wit, panache and flashes of mischief. Benoit and O’Connor’s Father Jud Duplenticy make a delightful pair, the two British actors sparking off each other with infectious enjoyment.”
To solve the mystery, Duplenticy, Blanc and Scott must sort through a murderer’s row of suspects in an ensemble cast that includes Glenn Close, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack and Thomas Haden Church.
Johnson helmed the movie from his own script. The filmmaker produced the project alongside Ram Bergman. Wake Up Dead Man will be released Netflix on Dec. 12, after a theatrical play starting Nov. 26., in time for an awards run. Johnson has been Oscar-nominated nominated twice for his Knives Out films, one for original and another for adapted screenplay.
Netflix acquired the Knives Out property in a $469 million megadeal in 2021.