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SYFY WIRE Knives Out

'Glass Onion' director Rian Johnson gives 'serious thought' to Muppets crossover

"That's a pretty good idea," Johnson says of a potential Muppets-based Knives Out mashup.

By Gina Salamone
Daniel Craig in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022); Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog

Could Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear soon be caught up in a murder mystery? Time will tell. But one thing's for certain: Rian Johnson, the director and writer behind the recently-released Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, is at least entertaining the idea.

The director and cast of the mystery film that's a sequel to 2019's Knives Out recently gathered to answer fan questions, as seen in the clip below which Netflix posted on Twitter Monday. When it was thrown out there that fans have been calling for Benoit Blanc — the detective played by Daniel Craig who's tasked with solving the murders in the two films — to be featured alongside the Muppets in a new installment, Johnson responded, "That's a pretty good idea."

Craig also seemed on board, replying, "That's a really good idea." Johnson added he had one character in mind that he'd love to see in Muppet form. "I wanna see the Muppet version of Kathryn so bad," the director said to Kathryn Hahn, who plays fictional Connecticut governor Claire Debella in Glass Onion. "I wanna see you as a Muppet."

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Johnson gave more thoughts on the proposed mashup to the Netflix blog Tudum last month. “It’s a joke that I thought was pretty brilliant, and I ended up really giving [it] some serious thought,” he admitted to Tudum. “As much as I take the murder mystery genre seriously, I take the genre of a Muppet movie seriously.” 

But, he eventually conceded, “I think those two things have very different rules. You can either have a Benoit Blanc mystery that has Muppets in it, but they’ll feel out of place. Or you can have a Muppet movie that Benoit Blanc is in, but it’ll feel like a Muppet movie. I wouldn’t want to compromise either of them. And I feel like in order to make it well and make it work, you’d have to make a choice and compromise one or the other. If I ever make a Muppet movie, I just want to make a great Muppet movie.”

Glass Onion had a limited theater release on Nov. 23 of 2022, the biggest theatrical release ever for a Netflix movie, before hitting the streaming service on Dec. 23. A hit among critics, the Knives Out sequel also stars Edward Norton as the billionaire who invites his friends to a murder mystery game on his private island in Greece, along with Janelle Monáe, Leslie Odom Jr., Kate Hudson, and Dave Bautista.

The good news for fans is that Netflix has locked in another Knives Out sequel, with both Johnson and Craig returning. Johnson also said in the clip that he hadn't yet decided on a locale for the third film to be set. In the meantime, Johnson's upcoming Poker Face series, a comedy-drama starring Natasha Lyonne that'll focus on a different mystery each week, hits Peacock Jan. 26.

Can't wait for the third Knives Out film? You'll soon be able to get your mystery fix by streaming Rian Johnson's Poker Face on Peacock beginning Jan. 26.