During an interview with Time Out about 2015’s Spectre, Daniel Craig did not even attempt to hide his disdain for the Bond franchise. When asked about playing 007 again, he said, “Now? I’d rather break this glass and slash my wrists.” When asked if his statement meant he would never do another Bond film, Craig said, “If I did another Bond movie, it would only be for money.” When asked about his feelings bout the next actor to play Bond, Craig declared, “Look, I don’t give a fuck.”

Of course, Eon Productions did give Craig money enough to get him to return for No Time to Die, but that movie definitively put an end to his run on the character. But with the third outing of his other ongoing character imminent, one cannot help but wonder if Craig has as much disdain for Benoit Blanc as he did for James Bond.

The answer is: no! But he does have his conditions. Speaking with Variety about the latest Knives Out movie Wake Up Dead Man, Craig observed, “These movies have to work at a very, very high level, otherwise there’s no point in doing them…. So as long as they’re doing that, we’ll keep doing them.”

Why the change in attitude? The answer may be with that “we” to whom Craig refers. Where the Bond franchise is a major moneymaking blockbuster franchise, then under the control of Eon Production heads Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, Knives Out is the brainchild of writer/director Rian Johnson. A series of Agatha Christie-style mysteries, the series stars Craig as the impeccably-dressed Benoit Blanc, a sleuth with an eye for the truth and a thick Southern drawl. Each entry inserts Blanc into a new group of weirdos, giving Craig plenty of space to show off the playfulness he exhibited in roles such as Joe Bang in Logan Lucky and William Lee in Queer.

Knives Out also lets Craig bounce off of other great actors, thanks to the films’ ensemble cast. The original film from 2019 sent Blanc to investigate the murder of a famed mystery author Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), letting him work alongside Ana de Armas as Harlan’s guileless nurse Marta as well as Chris Evans, Michael Shannon, Jamie Lee Curtis, and others as back-biting members of Harlan’s family. Janelle Monáe, Dave Bautista, and Edward Norton get to join in the fun as bubble-headed disrupters in the 2022 sequel Glass Onion.

The upcoming entry Wake Up Dead Man, coming straight to Netflix after a brief theatrical run, slightly revises the formula by teaming Blanc with a kindhearted priest (Josh O’Connor), who must deal with the acolytes of his murdered superior (Josh Brolin), a group that includes Jeremy Renner, Andrew Scott, and Cailee Spaeny.

Thus far, the Knives Out movies have been a hit for Netflix, a surprise to everyone, including Johnson and Craig. “We made it with no ambition whatsoever,” observed Craig. “Just let’s do the best movie we can. And it became something, and then here we are.” And that “we” still includes Craig, at least for now.

Wake Up Dead Man plays in theaters on November 26, 2025, and arrives to Netflix on December 12, 2025.

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