Rian Johnson has officially set the stage for Benoit Blanc’s next whodunit, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. The film will have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on Saturday, September 6 at the Princess of Wales Theatre. It will then serve as Opening Night Gala for the 69th BFI London Film Festival on October 8. After a limited theatrical play in November, the mystery streams worldwide on Netflix December 12, 2025.
Johnson’s ensemble again mixes marquee veterans and fast-rising names: Daniel Craig returns as Benoit Blanc, joined by Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack, and Thomas Haden Church. Production wrapped in the summer of 2024, and Johnson has teased a darker, more gothic flavor this time.
Watch the Trailer
Here’s the official date-announcement teaser from Netflix, which confirms the November theatrical window and Dec. 12 streaming launch.
Festival prestige meets streaming power
Strategically, Wake Up Dead Man mirrors the path that elevated Glass Onion from a holiday streamer to a cultural talking point: festival heat, a brief theatrical window, then a global Netflix drop. TIFF provides the ‘first taste’ buzz, while London’s Opening Night position signals awards-season confidence and international visibility. Netflix’s own rollout notes the film ‘will grace select theaters in November’ before streaming, underscoring how the company pairs prestige positioning with platform reach.
This playbook has worked. In 2022, Glass Onion surged to the top of Netflix’s global Top 10 and quickly became one of the service’s most-watched titles during its debut window, proving that a smart, starry mystery can counterprogram blockbuster fatigue.
Returning sleuth, fresh suspects
Craig’s Blanc—equal parts genteel charm and razor logic—anchors the brand, but the franchise’s secret weapon is its rotating suspect gallery. The cast list reads like a dream dinner party, with icons (Close, Brolin, Renner, Washington) and scene-stealers (O’Connor, Scott, Spaeny, McCormack, Church). Johnson’s tonal pivot—’darker’ and ‘more gothic’—promises new textures without abandoning the series’ clean puzzle-box pleasures.
Netflix’s event strategy
Netflix is marketing Wake Up Dead Man like an event picture: festival debut, prestige London slot, November theatrical sampling, and a date-certain global streaming release for the holidays. The cadence provides multiple conversation spikes—TIFF reactions, London’s opening-night optics, theatrical word-of-mouth—before the platform drop invites communal, spoiler-sensitive viewing at scale.
Holiday streaming impact
December 2025 will be crowded, but this franchise thrives as smart counterprogramming. Murder mysteries are inherently rewatchable—audiences chase clues on a second viewing—making them rare streaming stickies. Anchoring Netflix’s December slate with Benoit Blanc essentially turns the holidays into a recurring appointment: a new case to argue about with family and friends, whether you caught an early theatrical show or waited for the couch. Netflix’s date-announcement doubles down on that ritual, planting a clear flag on December 12.
FAQ
Q: When does Wake Up Dead Man come out?
A: Select U.S. theaters in November; streaming worldwide on Netflix December 12, 2025.
Q: Is it premiering at TIFF—and when?
A: Yes. It’s a TIFF world premiere, with a listed screening on Saturday, September 6 at the Princess of Wales Theatre.
Q: Who’s in the cast?
A: Daniel Craig returns as Benoit Blanc, alongside Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack, and Thomas Haden Church.
The Bigger Picture
Wake Up Dead Man shows how the modern ‘event film’ can live comfortably across festivals, theaters, and streaming: the answer is that prestige and platform scale can be complementary rather than contradictory when the rollout is disciplined and the movie has a clear identity. With Johnson’s tonal shift and Craig’s magnetic sleuth, expect the film to dominate December conversation—then linger as a repeat-watch puzzle through winter.
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