The Goonies star Josh Brolin is the latest high-profile addition to the cast of Wake Up Dead Man – Rian Johnson’s upcoming Knives Out murder mystery.
On a long enough timeline, you and everyone you know will eventually star in a Knives Out murder mystery. The latest addition to the increasingly huge roster of talent appearing in Rian Johnson’s upcoming Wake Up Dead Man is, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Josh Brolin.
The Goonies star will therefore appear in the third Knives Out film alongside the likes of Glenn Close, Jeremy Renner, Josh O’Connor and Cailee Spaeny, who were all announced in May.
Other actors on the list include Andrew Scott, Kerry Washington, Mila Kunis, and towering above them all, Daniel Craig as the series’ beady-eyed detective, Benoit Blanc.
Due to make its debut on Netlfix next year, Wake Up Dead Man’s title was also unveiled last month, and continues Johnson’s theme of naming his mysteries after songs. Knives Out is taken from the ditty of the same name by Radiohead; 2022 sequel Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery was inspired by a Beatles tune, while Wake Up Dead Man was originally a 1997 number by U2 (sample line: “If there’s and order / In all of this disorder / Is it like a tape recorder?”).
Read more: 13 people not in the Knives Out 3 cast (yet)
Plot details for Wake Up Dead Man are understandably being kept quiet (it wouldn’t be much of a mystery if they weren’t). One thing Johnson tends to do, though, is make his titles figure visually in some way in each of his movies.
Knives Out featured a chair surrounded by knives and daggers – an image regularly used in its marketing. In Glass Onion, charmless tech billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton) had a literal glass onion – well, more a kind of glass dome – sitting on top of his luxurious island retreat.
How will Johnson illustrate Wake Up Dead Man? With a cataleptic victim waking up in a coffin, perhaps, like Edgar Allan Poe’s The Premature Burial? Just a thought. Poe did essentially invent the detective thriller with Auguste Dupin, after all.
Wake Up Dead Man is set to begin filming in the UK this month. More news on its production – and voluminous cast – as we get it.
Read more: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery review | Daniel Craig takes a bath
