'Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery’ director Rian Johnson on keeping it fresh, interesting but staying true to familiar ground (VIDEO)

KUALA LUMPUR, November 23 — Netflix’s upcoming whodunnit film Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery will be stepping into a whole new narrative.

The film, loosely based on famous detective novel writer Agatha Christie’s books, will take audiences on a new mystery with new faces along with a whole different locale and a string of plot twists.

Returning to the directing helm is Rian Johnson who admitted that making the sequel to his 2019’s Knives Out is challenging but fun.

“But the mode in which we were thinking of keeping them was always not to continue the story of the first one, but to treat them the way Agatha Christie treated her books and to do an entirely new mystery every time, a new location, new rogues gallery of characters.

“Just as a fan, anyone who knows her work, she really shook it up book to book. It’s not just a change of whodunit. She was mixing genres.

“She was throwing crazy narrative spins that had never been done in whodunits before. She was really keeping the audience on their toes,” Johnson said.

Johnson added that with them trading the browns of New England in the previous movie for the blue and yellows of Greece, is also an indication on the movie direction and how it is tapping in the tradition of destination murders.

“Evil Under the Sun, Death on the Nile, The Last of Sheila, which is one of my favourite films. There’s something to draw from in terms of the vacation mystery and so tapping into that.”

He wrote the script in 2020 in the middle of lockdown.

“So, like a lot of us, I was sitting at home, kind of wishing I was on a Greek island. So that might have had something to do with it,” he said.

Johnson is also happy with the fact that audiences are rediscovering the murder mystery genre and he’s excited to be one of the filmmakers to be able to do it.

He added that murder mystery movies in the late 70’s and early 80’s greatly impacted him as a kid and seeing the similar effect his movies has, Johnson couldn’t be happier.

“The coolest thing for me is talking to friends who have kids around that age, and seeing them get into these movies, and recognising, oh, that’s kind of what we made these for.

“And it’s super, super cool that they can inspire whoever’s that’s going, 30 years from now, do their own version of it. That makes me really happy,” Johnson said.

According to Edward Norton who's playing billionaire tech tycoon Miles Bron, said that the film which focuses on the spirit of the moment is what made it fun. -- Picture courtesy of Netflix.

Award winning actor and cast member, Edward Norton who’s playing the billionaire tech tycoon Miles Bron in the film admitted that what they’re pulling off is considered as ‘reheated beans’.

However, the Fight Club actor pointed out what made the sequel interesting and fun was the fact it weaves into the zeitgeist of the current times.

“You can see the times you’re living in, and characters who represent the foibles of our moment, gives it that extra thing.

“If you can see through a thing and see yourself and your moment in it, you enjoy it more or relate to it more.

“And I think Rian has pulled that off very uniquely within this kind of, you know, rekindled affection for the form,” Norton said.

This is also aligned with his billionaire character which Norton also admitted, was mirrored from real life tech billionaires.

“The list of people it could be grows longer every day. And even some of the ones we might not have thought were candidates have proved themselves to be just in recent weeks.

“I said to Rian I think that it’s sort of like Carly Simon’s song, “You’re so vain, you’ll probably think this song is about you.”

“I think that there’s a lot of tech illuminati who probably will and should think that it’s in reference to them. Men and women,” Norton said.

The sequel will see the return of intrepid detective Benoit Blanc played by British actor, Daniel Craig who has found himself at a lavish private Greek estate with a group of disparate friends gathering at the invitation of Miles Bron.

As in all the best murder mysteries, each character harbours their own secrets, lies and motivations. When someone turns up dead, everyone is a suspect.

The film also stars Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista, Janelle Monae, Leslie Odom Junior, Kathryn Hanh as well as Madeline Cline and Jessica Henwick along with Ram Bergman as the producer.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery will premiere on Netflix this December 23.