Rian Johnson has hinted at Knives Out 4 with Daniel Craig and hopes to cast Meryl Streep. Wake Up Dead Man will arrive in 2025 before the next mystery begins.
If there’s one thing Rian Johnson has shown us these past few years, it’s that the whodunit isn’t defunct but it simply needed a new wardrobe. The Knives Out series has blossomed from a sleeper success into a cultural juggernaut, the quintessential cinematic comfort food for a generation exhausted by CGI superheroes. But now as we’re about to do the third, Wake Up Dead Man (in late 2025), the conversation is already shifting to the future. And that future has a name: Meryl Streep.
Rian Johnson tends to keep things close to the vest. He is notoriously not in possession of “wish lists” of actors, instead allowing the script to determine the casting. However, he has just broken his own rule in an interview with IndieWire, revealing that Meryl Streep for a future mystery is the one and only person he wants.
“I feel like you’d slot into a murder mystery very well,”
–Johnson said
Addressing the screen legend, It’s a match made in cinematic heaven. The Knives Out world is very much about tone, a sort of heightened reality where camp has real emotion. Streep is the unchallenged sovereign of this discrepancy. From the grotesque comedy of Death Becomes Her to the icy satire of The Devil Wears Prada, she can portray a matriarchal antagonist or a flustered intellectual counterpoint to Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc.
The campaign to get her is already in-house. Kerry Washington, star of the soon to Wake Up Dead Man, has gone public with her intention to “encourage” her former co-star to come aboard. In Hollywood, that sort of peer-to-peer validation is often what seals the deal.
Part of the brilliance of the Knives Out approach is its ”revolving door” policy. Except for the immaculately clad Benoit Blanc, no one makes it to the sequel. This “literary hex” format eliminates the “Cabot Cove Syndrome” (“where murder just keeps following one person around”) and keeps the storyline fresh.
According to Variety, This setup has come to serve as the franchise’s secret weapon in recruiting. It’s easy to see Streep, one of the finest actresses of her generation, expressing hesitation about signing a six-movie deal for a Marvel franchise, but a “one-and-done” invitation to play a quirky suspect in a glamorous location? That’s an easy yes. It gives Johnson the ability to book “Avengers-level” casts in what are basically mid-budget conversations in rooms.
“Daniel and I make these films as partners. The moment either of us feels even a little unsure, we’ll stop.
—Johnson said.
We have the 2025 release to work through before any Streep dreams. Wake Up Dead Man will move the satirical focus from the tech disruptors of Glass Onion to religious organizations. With a cast that includes Josh Brolin, Andrew Scott, and the legendary Glenn Close, the film appears to be trying out working with Hollywood royalty—perhaps a dry run for the “Streep Proposition.”
But the most intriguing twist may emerge behind the scenes. The massive $450 million four-picture deal Johnson inked with Netflix officially ends with this third film. This makes Knives Out 4 a “free agent.”
Johnson has spoken openly about his preference for the theatrical experience, and with the rights possibly coming available, we may get a huge bidding war among streamers and traditional studios. This grants Johnson and Daniel Craig extraordinary leverage. If they want to get Meryl Streep to the movie, not just the television movie, they can insist on a full theatrical run as a prerequisite for the next film.
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Asking for Meryl Streep in Knives Out now means the game is no longer a hit series, it’s trying to become a cinematic institution. In the age when franchise and reboots rule the roost, this franchise is the last holdout of the “adult blockbuster”—films that are propelled by dialogue, character and wit rather than explosions.
“When it’s all said and done, you make the movie and you just can’t see anybody else playing that role.”
—Johnson said.
Rian Johnson’s vision of Knives Out is constantly changing and deepening, and with the chance of Meryl Streep joining Daniel Craig in another film round, the franchise is moving closer to become a trip-holiday cinematic tradition. The stage is set for bigger names, bigger bids and an even grander reinvention of the modern whodunit with Wake Up Dead Man coming in 2025 and the fourth film currently in “free agent” limbo. If Streep makes her way into this world, it wouldn’t just be casting — it’d be history.
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Explore Blue Moon (2025), Linklater's poignant film on art, loss, and time, featuring Ethan Hawke's career-defining portrayal of Lorenz Hart.
Richard Linklater is known for his temporal distortions, which he often varies over the course of decades, as in the Before trilogy or Boyhood. But in his 2025 magnum opus, Blue Moon, he does something radically different. He condenses the crushing burden of an entire career going down the tubes into a single confining night in the bowels of Sardi’s restaurant.
This movie is not simply a biopic, it’s a chamber piece on the brutal architecture of artistic mourning. It is March 31, 1943, and with these words the film memorializes the end of the Jazz Age, which was immediately supplanted by the “golden age” of the musical theater.
The setup is ruinously straightforward. Lorenz “Larry” Hart (an electric Ethan Hawke), the brilliant, jaded lyricist half of the legendary Rodgers and Hart team, is holding up the bar at Sardi’s.
Just across the street, his one-time soul mate and partner, Richard Rodgers, is debuting Oklahoma! with another partner, Oscar Hammerstein II. Hart must wait in the limbo of the restaurant, the muted applause he can hear is the sound of him being made redundant.
Linklater has said the film “Deals with a trauma that is, in a way, two-fold.”
This is not just a business split, it’s an artistic divorce between two men who defined an era together. Rodgers, the practical puppet master, had to change in order to live, to detach himself from Hart’s chaotic alcoholism and revue-style wit to something more formal and honest. Hart, the poetic soul of the roaring twenties, was just abandoned.
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The brilliance of Blue Moon is that it knows how to wait. According to The Guardian, Linklater and Hawke had been thinking about this film for more than ten years. Linklater famously told Hawke years ago,
“I’ll wait 10 years,”
Knowing the actor had to age into the role. To play the battered, gnome-like figure of the 47-year-old Hart, a guy worn down by drink and depression, he had to lose his youthful boyishness.
That prolonged timeline gives the film a deep, lived-in sadness. We see Hart desperately go through the motions of his old self — flirting, quipping, drinking trying to drown out the scary fact that the society he helped shape has no use for him anymore. He derides the “corny” nostalgia of Oklahoma! and cannot understand why the audience’s preference has moved away from his urbane sophistication to simple country sweetness.
“We all think we’re gonna run the table forever but tastes can change,” Linklater says in the production notes.
That is the film’s haunting thesis. Blue Moon is a monument to the “loser” of historical change. It’s a beautiful, sad recognition that sometimes even the most brilliant cultural architects find themselves trapped in the past, watching the future being built just down the street without them.
Blue Moon isn’t merely a movie — it’s an elegy. Linklater creates a haunting reflection on change, mourning and the slow brutality of time. The film, anchored by Ethan Hawke’s brilliant performance, reminds us that even the most brilliant creative minds can quickly become relics. It’s a masterwork of stillness, sorrow and storytelling: a paean to those who made the past even as they watched the future speed by.
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Catch all the drama from Floyd Mayweather vs John Gotti! Explosive rematch updates, fight results, and controversies you won’t believe—read now!
The rematch of Floyd Mayweather vs John Gotti III went without trash talk and aggressive violence like the first match. “We had to put on a show for the people. I want to thank Gotti for being a man of his word”, quoted by Mayweather at the DAZN. There is no comparison between Mayweather, 47 and newly entered Gotti III but still with a 16 minute exhibition create the hell of a show for their fans.
The controversy occurred when Mayweather refused the referee’s warning of “unfair punches” when he said “move”! It led to the fight changing into controversy. If you focus on round 2 in the rematch, the referee has been replaced because Mayweather did not listen to him.
The rematch is continued with the second referee and Mayweather still punching Gotti III hard, but there is no shame for Gotti for defending himself. In the sixth and seven rounds Gotti III adds some shots and hooks to Mayweather but he still throws a smile to his fans.
Floyd Mayweather has a brilliant complex personality who has a diverse personality. But he also flaunts his legacy and wealth, he quotes “I’m not a fighter. I’m a business man.” is critical which triggers most of the controversies with other companions.
The recent controversy of Floyd Mayweather vs John Gotti also happened because of trash talks from both sides.
The social behaviour of Floyd Mayweather is selective. If we saw this as a fan of Floyd, his aggressive personality in the ring is helping him to beat and win. Sharp in business and private in personal matters is also a sign of mixed personality.
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John Gotti III belongs to the criminal family as his grandfather was the biggest mafia. Most people see him as a hero but he has some fearless and bold behaviour towards others. He is ruthless and unpredictable for his rivals, which led to an anti-hero type personality.
As he has criminal background but also shadowing on the medial lights is a sign of both personalities which makes one think that his ring fight goes violent.
The retired Floyd Mayweather has professional experience in boxing meanwhile John Goti III is from the Mixed Martial Arts background and now he has become a professional boxer. The first exhibition fight in June 2023 was held but stopped in the sixth round.
In the sixth round, the referee stopped the fight due to continued use of trash talk and aggressive violence from both sides after the several warnings. Later on, John Gotti III charged at Mayweather because he might feel that fight was unfair.
The first match clips go viral on social media, the buzz about the exhibition is more than a movie trailer. So, the rematch took place between Mayweather and Gotti III. This one goes for the entire eight rounds but there were still moments where the referee has warned them about a dominated fight.
Gotti gave Mayweather a space during the fight and made the 22,000 people at the match unhappy. Gotti takes self defence in the first round and does not put more effort to fight back. Well, it was just an exhibition fight not a scored one but still Mayweather dominated the whole match. In the second round, Referee Hector Afu got out of the ring because Mayweather was consistently hitting Gotti, 31 which might seem as an unfair fight to their fans.
Gotti started to fight back, punching really hard on Mayweather‘s body but that didn’t affect much. Fans got more annoyed when Mayweather started to beat Gotti really hard many times in the sixth & seven rounds.
Gotti got cornered by Mayweather in the last round and still Gotti’s have not put much effort into fighting back. He has just defended himself most of the time during this match.
There were no winners in the Floyd Mayweather vs John Gotti fight because this was an exhibition fight.
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When the first fight went high with chaos in the ring, it looked more like a street fight. Videos of the brawl went viral on the internet, with millions of views in just a few hours. Some fans get annoyed because of this trash talk and extra violence but Mayweather hasn’t confirmed anything. Fans of boxing give their take that the fight is scripted, not real. Is this fight even real or just an attention grabbing plan? These theories added more buzz to this night than it already has.
The first fight of Mayweather vs Gotti was a big buzz all over social media. Creating such hype on tiktok, youtube, and facebook and grabbed a lot of attention for entertainment purposes. All the hype is taking the fight to the next level so the big question is – Is boxing still a sport or become an entertainment? Most of the old fans still like that sport but for the new generation fans, it is just fireworks.
The Floyd Mayweather vs John Gotti III exhibition fight will go down as the most chaotic fight in recent history. They both lifted their ego, emotions, and spectacles above their ranking or title. This fight isn’t about winning in the ring, it’s more likely to show who has more power outside the ring. The rematch went totally biased, an annoying fan reaction said it aloud. There is no winner in this match, only the entertainment.
