Knives Out: Daniel Craig Almost Didn’t Play Benoit Blanc, Rian Johnson Reveals

It's hard to imagine anyone other than Daniel Craig playing the role of Benoit Blanc, the wily private detective at the heart of writer-director Rian Johnson's three Knives Out films.

But the British actor almost lost out on the meaty role (a mix of Hercule Poirot and Foghorn Leghorn) due to his arduous commitments to the blockbuster James Bond franchise, which officially closed out his tenure as 007 with 2021's No Time to Die.

Rian Johnson says Benoit Blanc role in Knives Out almost didn't go to Daniel Craig

"When we were first trying to get Knives Out made, Daniel wasn’t available," Johnson revealed in a recent conversation with IndieWire to promote Wake Up Dead Man. "He was doing the Bond movies. He was my first choice for it, but he was a hard 'not available' because he was on the Bond movies. So, we went to other people for it. We got a bunch of no's about Benoit Blanc."

But the acclaimed filmmaker doesn't kiss and tell. When asked who else could have played the character if the wind blew a little differently, Johnson said, "There’s an alternate universe [but] I’m not going to tell you the people we went to."

"The instant there was some delay with the Bond movie and Daniel had a window, the instant he became available, I leapt," Johnson continued. "Thank God. Thank God Daniel got it. And the moment Daniel read the script and said yes, it was six weeks until we were shooting. So the whole movie was put together really, really quickly. Which, actually, with casting helps. It’s not, can you save us a slot six months from now? And then maybe they get a Marvel movie or something. It’s, can you come to Boston next week?"

Distributed by Lionsgate, the original Knives Out was a major box office success, grossing over $312 million worldwide against a modest budget of $40 million. In March 2021, Netflix shelled out a whopping $450 million for two sequels, which premiered on the streamer in 2022 and 2025 following brief theatrical windows. While a fourth entry isn't in the works at the moment, Johnson and Craig aren't closing the door on future murder mysteries for Mr. Blanc.

"The thing I’m writing now is not one of these movies," Johnson teased to IndieWire. "It’s an original, totally different thing. So I won’t just be making these. But if Daniel and I feel we are able to figure out a different thing to talk about, or approach, or makes it scary in the right way for us, I would be thrilled to keep making these movies."

The third Knives Out movie—Wake Up Dead Man—is now streaming on Netflix alongside Glass Onion.