Pod Insights WHAT WENT WRONG REVIEW: Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery About this episode In this bonus episode Chris and Lizzie share their unfiltered thoughts on Rian Johnson’s ‘Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery’, and discuss the surprising (and potentially mis-marketed) message of the film. Find out which stars stood out in an all-star cast - we’re looking at you Josh O’Connor & Daryl McCormack - and which were completely unnecessary. We also discuss how the impending Warner Bros./Netflix or Paramount merger will change the landscape for movies like this.
This episode DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS! Listen with caution.
*CORRECTIONS: Chris mistakenly asserts that 2019's Captain Marvel underperformed - it did not. He confused it with 2023's The Marvels.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:43 Chris Winterbauer? Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to What Went Wrong, your favorite podcast full stop, where we solve the mysteries of what went wrong on your favorite movies, as well as some of Hollywood's biggest floppers, and we love them all. This is a show all about how it's impossible to make a movie, let alone a good one, almost as impossible as it is to stage the perfect crime. Today, we're here for a bonus episode discussion of the new Rian Johnson whodunit, Wake Up Dead Man, A Knives Out Mystery. Lizzie, the question remains, if I were stabbed in the back in my podcast studio, and it was unclear how anyone got inside, could you figure it out?
2:26 Lizzie Bassett? No, you would be absolutely out of luck.
2:28 Chris Winterbauer? Definitely.
2:29 Lizzie Bassett? But I would attend your funeral. That's about the best I can offer. And then I'd do an episode about it.
2:35 Chris Winterbauer? Would you sing Amazing Grace at my funeral?
2:38 Lizzie Bassett? Yes, only because it might make you roll in your grave.
2:41 Chris Winterbauer? Yep. How you doing today? Are you ready to talk religion?
2:47 Lizzie Bassett? I'm, I'm doing great. I am really excited to talk about this today. This, Chris and I actually got the chance to watch this together, which was very exciting because David and I are now back in Los Angeles. The gang's back together. I don't know how much Chris enjoyed that, but I had a great time at our movie night. Chris, why don't you go first? What his face says.
3:09 Chris Winterbauer? I was uncomfortable with Lizzie's presence, generally speaking. I'm not used to having anyone in my house I'm not closely related to. No, it was an absolute treat to watch this together. We're so excited to talk about this film with you guys today. It does release today. This episode is releasing December 12th, the same day that the movie comes out on Netflix. It did have a limited theatrical release, and I'm excited to talk about the ways in which this movie in particular ties into and is symptomatic of a broader trend in Hollywood that we are seeing that is accelerating at the moment with recent news, although there are some battle lines being drawn in the broader scheme of the movie industry that are really interesting and making for some strange bedfellows. And it all ties in. It's very exciting. But let's start with this movie.
3:53 Chris Winterbauer? And Lizzie, the structure of today's episode, as we've discussed before, we will start with a brief spoiler-free section of our thoughts on the film. We'll then give you guys some information on the movie itself, how it came to be. And then, let's say 20 minutes in or so, we will give a big spoilers warning. Stop listening, for the love of God, if you don't know what happened in this movie, because we're going to spoil everything. So until 20 minutes or so, we will not spoil. And then we will shout out that we're going to spoil, and then we will spoil. Everything shall be spoiled. All right, Lizzie, do you want to do your spoiler-free thoughts? You just said you wanted me to do my spoiler-free thoughts first.
4:27 Lizzie Bassett? Yeah, why don't you go first?
4:29 Chris Winterbauer? I'll go first. So. A boy is born. So.
4:34 Lizzie Bassett? Chapter one.
4:35 Chris Winterbauer? Chapter one. Rian Johnson, generally enjoy. I think he is a very smart writer and director, exceedingly talented. When I was in high school, I saw Brick, his debut movie, which you guys have not seen it, is a neo noir murder mystery film set in a California high school, but written as if it took place in a Dashiell Hammett style, you know, the big sleep, Howard Hughes Gothic noir. It's very fun. Joseph Gordon Levitt, a lot of wonderfully talented young actors.
5:05 Lizzie Bassett? It's great.
5:06 Chris Winterbauer? It really, it's great. And it broke Ryan, it's got such a voice, such a sense of style. It really broke Rian Johnson out. And since then, I've had this kind of like on again, off again, relationship with him. He's marvelously successful. Like I said, so talented. The highs are so high. I adored Looper.
5:22 Lizzie Bassett? Yeah.
5:22 Chris Winterbauer? Like Looper, Looper is so beautiful. It moved me so deeply and it even violates that rule of two forms of mumbo jumbo, right? You only get one mumbo jumbo in your movie and he does too. He does time travel and telekinesis and I totally don't care. It's totally fine. That movie absolutely rocks. Brothers Bloom, I was like, okay with, but it has racial bias. So, you know, I'm in, I'm in no matter what. And then I gotta be honest, I really didn't like a Star Wars movie at all. I didn't really love any of the new Star Wars that much, but it just wasn't for me.
5:53 Lizzie Bassett? I didn't love it either.
5:54 Chris Winterbauer? I liked Poker Face quite a bit and the first Knives Out, I was really just down the middle on. I thought it was fine. I thought in the 2019, as we'll discuss, was a very big year for kind of eat the rich sort of film, films in the, in the world as we saw Parasite win, win the Academy Award that year for Best Picture. And I just, I did not love Daniel Craig's Kentucky Fried accent. I did like some of the supporting roles. I liked Chris Evans quite a bit in that movie. He's makes like a fun, a fun villain as we learn.
6:23 Lizzie Bassett? Yes.
6:23 Chris Winterbauer? I liked Ana de Armas. I thought she was really good in it. I liked Christopher Plummer, but it just, it didn't really captivate me in the way, same way that other movies from that year did. I did not understand the hype behind it. And the second movie really underwhelmed me. Glass Onion, I did not enjoy it very much. I thought no one felt recognizably human in that movie. And so this movie, I went in with a pretty bad attitude, as Lizzie can attest, because I was sitting there making snide remarks for the first 45 minutes. And the first 45 minutes are slow. I think whether you like this movie or not, you will admit the first 45 minutes are very slow.
6:58 Lizzie Bassett? Yes.
6:59 Chris Winterbauer? And then this movie just kind of grew on me. And there's a scene about midway through where unexpectedly, a character who seems to have been introduced for comedic relief, played by Bridget Everett, asks our young priest, played wonderfully by Josh O'Connor, to pray for her. And it's shockingly moving. And it's, to me, it felt like, oh, I must, I'm craving something human, and we get a real human moment here. And I actually quite enjoyed the back half of the movie. Generally speaking, I did not feel, I was not particularly interested in the murder mystery aspect of this movie. I thought it was convoluted. I wasn't just that engaged.
7:41 Chris Winterbauer? But the meditation on faith, on the role of an institution like the church, on the way that it can be used for good and for bad, on the role that a priest can have in the community, both as a healer, as well as a divider, as we see with Josh Brolin's character. I thought it had some interesting things to say and explore. And I, so I guess the way I would review it is, I enjoyed it overall, but I felt that my interest was more on what Johnson seemed to be writing in the margins and less about the mechanics of the story itself. And I will just say, I felt like there is no reason for this sprawling supporting cast. Like, so many of these characters tie in virtually not at all to this story. And so-
8:24 Lizzie Bassett? To a distracting degree with, with certain-
8:26 Chris Winterbauer? I agree.
8:26 Lizzie Bassett? Casting.
8:27 Chris Winterbauer? Yeah.
8:27 Lizzie Bassett? Yeah.
8:27 Chris Winterbauer? So I felt like there is a nice beating heart to this movie that was missing from something like Glass Onion and even, even the first Knives Out. But ultimately, the whodunit elements didn't really do much for me. So, Lizzie, I'll kick it to you. I think I was spoiler free.
8:41 Lizzie Bassett? You were, yeah. I think you had the benefit of coming in with very low expectations on this. I feel like I had the opposite because I really loved the first one. And I think that is due to the fact that I'm a big sucker for this kind of ensemble murder mystery.
8:58 Chris Winterbauer? You're a big sucker for Doodle Crack, what's to the hack, Sam? So what's-
9:04 Chris Winterbauer? saying?
9:06 Chris Winterbauer? Does Foghorn Leghorn?
9:08 Lizzie Bassett? Yes, Foghorn Leghorn. That is exactly what he sounds like. No, I, look, I love, you know, Hercule Poirot, I love Murder on the Orient Express. I, I love this kind of heavy ensemble whodunit. I love the, the like parodies of it, like Clue and, you know, I, it's something I really enjoy. I enjoy the action of a whodunit and, and I thought that The First Knives Out was very successful in the actual mystery.
9:40 Chris Winterbauer? It is certainly, even though I didn't love it.
9:43 Lizzie Bassett? Yeah.
9:44 Chris Winterbauer? Oh, no, this movie barely even feints at doing that.
9:48 Lizzie Bassett? It really does. I, I think I came in, you know, I was messing with you before we watched this, but you were so grumpy about covering this one. And I said to Chris's wife Carmela, I was like, it's just because Chris hates fun. And that's because to me, which is true, I stand by that. But that's because to me, The First Knives Out is genuine fun because so much of the action is around trying to unravel the mystery. And, you know, I watched a bit of an interview with, um, Rian Johnson, uh, and I believe it was for Collider. And, you know, his, his point was like, yes, the mystery is the fun, but you can't rely on
10:28 Lizzie Bassett? that for the entire story. And he's totally right. Um, you can't rely on just solving the mystery for the movie to work as a whole. And I think that the first one for me was kind of the perfect recipe where it's like really good mystery that you're unraveling as, you know, Benoit Blanc is doing his Foghorn Leghorn dance around it. And also you care about the characters.
10:49 Chris Winterbauer? Yeah, you are invested in On a Armist, for example, in that movie. A hundred percent.
10:54 Lizzie Bassett? Glass Onion, I don't.
10:55 Chris Winterbauer? That's just a mystery. There's, I feel like there's no heart in Glass Onion.
10:59 Lizzie Bassett? I agree. And then I think that this one swung pretty far in the other direction where the actual mystery is the least important part of this movie to the point where the murder doesn't even occur until like 40.
11:12 Chris Winterbauer? Minutes into the movie.
11:13 Lizzie Bassett? Yes. Yeah.
11:14 Chris Winterbauer? So that would normally be like the. Inciting incident, right? Maybe 12 minutes in.
11:17 Lizzie Bassett? It's not.
11:18 Chris Winterbauer? And then the act one lock-in really comes like 47. I remember I turned to Lizzie and I said, that's the act one lock-in and we were 47 minutes into the movie. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but if you are a murder mystery fan, like you're saying, and you're coming in, there's a whole lot of, okay, let's get to the stabbing. What's going on?
11:36 Lizzie Bassett? I was like, who's gonna do it? Who's gonna die? Who's gonna stab? And it did, it just, it takes, it takes a very long time to get there. I think I owe this movie a re-watch because I was so frustrated.
11:46 Chris Winterbauer? Lizzie sighed so many times during this movie.
11:51 Lizzie Bassett? I, I had a hard time.
11:53 Chris Winterbauer? She goes, this is getting, gonna get panned. And I go, it has 92% on Run Tomatoes.
11:58 Lizzie Bassett? Fairness to me, that was the first half of the movie that I said that because it is a bit slow. I did really like it. I started to enjoy it far more in the second half. I think very much due to Josh O'Connor's performance. He grounds this thing. Without him, this really doesn't work. And I think this movie is tapping into something that I am seeing a lot right now, both across my algorithm and I think in a lot of projects that are being produced, which is a sort of dissection of, as you said, organized religion versus faith. And in particular, as it pertains to Christianity.
12:37 Lizzie Bassett? And I think that this movie actually did a very good job at examining that, at examining, what is the pomp and circumstance versus what is the actual message versus who is the messenger? And, you know, what is their intention? Is it good? Is it bad? Some other performances that I want to call out that were really fun. I love Daryl McCormack. And I think that he didn't have a ton to do in this, but what he did have, he was great at. And I would like to petition Barbara Broccoli, if you're listening, come on now, you've got a James Bond right there.
13:14 Chris Winterbauer? He's beautiful.
13:15 Lizzie Bassett? He's beautiful. He's a great actor and he has, he's got a real edge to him that I think Daniel Craig had, but he's also very funny.
13:22 Chris Winterbauer? He does. Yeah, he's good. He, he, he can be intimidating. He knows how to use his, he's got great eyes, that piercing stare, and he's big.
13:32 Lizzie Bassett? He is very big. Yeah.
13:33 Chris Winterbauer? He's physically imposing.
13:34 Lizzie Bassett? To go back very briefly to what this movie I think is saying about faith and organized religion, you know, There was a very easy version of this to make where Josh O'Connor's character becomes completely disenchanted with the church, Christianity, with, you know, the message of Jesus that he believes. And they don't do that. I did really appreciate that they don't take the easy way out in terms of what he's learning about both himself and the organization that he is a part of. And I think that there's a more nuanced exploration of organized religion happening in this movie that I appreciated. And I'm not someone who participates in organized religion.
14:14 Lizzie Bassett? And I, this honestly made me wish that I enjoyed it more in some ways, or wish that I, that I had found the kind of faith that Josh O'Connor's character has and is able to share in this movie. All that being said, I think I turned to you less than an hour into this and said exactly who had done it.
14:40 Chris Winterbauer? You did correctly guess it. I can back you up. And very early in the movie, Benoit was so huffing and puffing his way into the church.
14:47 Lizzie Bassett? Well, he knew, Chris. He knew from the beginning.
14:50 Chris Winterbauer? All right, let's talk some details before we get into the actual mystery of Knives Out. So Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery is a 2025 mystery film written and directed by Rian Johnson. It is a sequel, as we mentioned, a standalone sequel to Glass Onion. And it is the third film in the Knives Out series. It stars Daniel Craig, Josh O'Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Daryl McCormack, Andrew Scott, Kaylee Spanney, Thomas Haden Church, Jeffrey Wright, and many, many more, including Joseph Gordon-Levitt as one of the baseball announcers, which I didn't notice, but only learned afterwards when I was looking things up. And of course, a frequent collaborator of Rian Johnson's.
15:33 Chris Winterbauer? As always, the IMDb logline reads, "Benoit Blanc returns for his most dangerous case yet." That is a terrible logline. Not only is this certainly not his most dangerous case, he is never in any physical danger. I don't think that's really a spoiler.
15:46 Lizzie Bassett? I think they're making a mistake with the way that they're marketing this.
15:49 Chris Winterbauer? I agree.
15:50 Lizzie Bassett? We'll see what happens, but upon the release, I wonder if people are going to have a similar reaction to what I did in terms of finding the actual mystery relatively unsatisfying and overlooking maybe the more important things that the movie has to say.
16:03 Chris Winterbauer? Right, because what you really want to say is devoted atheist Benoit Blanc comes up against his most wily foe yet, the mysteries of faith. Like, that is really what the movie is interrogating. It's just using ostensibly a murder to get through it. The slightly longer version, this is paraphrasing Fiona Murphy at ReligionNews.com. "The story follows a young, welcoming priest, Father Judd, played wonderfully by Josh O'Connor, who is sent to assist the violent and morally untoward Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, played quite fun, with quite fun relish by Josh Brolin,
16:45 Chris Winterbauer? at our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude, a fictional Catholic parish in upstate New York. A murder ensues, we will not say of who, and all fingers tend to point at Father Judd, who needs to exonerate himself, figure out what happened, and also there is a largely wasted, I would argue, flock of unusual devotees, acolytes, at Wicks' feet, all of whom, you know, are odd."
17:13 Lizzie Bassett? There's a couple that are very well suited to this. There's a whole bunch that are not. And I want to put a pin in what you just said for the spoiler portion of this about all fingers pointing towards Judd. So just remember that. Let's come back to it.
17:27 Chris Winterbauer? Put a pin. Let's talk about Rian Johnson briefly. So if you guys are unaware, Rian Johnson, who is married to, who, Lizzie?
17:34 Lizzie Bassett? Karina Longworth, whose podcast, You Must Remember This, is one of our favorites.
17:38 Chris Winterbauer? Rian Johnson broke out, as we mentioned, with Brick 2005. It's this great neo-noir mystery film. He follows it up with The Brothers Bloom. Again, Rachel Weisz, very fun. Adrian Brody, kind of underperformed, but I think showed he could handle a bigger budget. And then I think really breaks out wide with Looper. And if you guys haven't seen it, Looper is a really dynamic time travel movie. Very simple. It's what that movie Gemini Man kind of wanted to be, I think, in a lot of ways, which is Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the younger version of his character is being, is hunting down the older version of his
18:18 Chris Winterbauer? character, who is hunting down someone of his own in a misbegotten quest for revenge. And it's, uses time travel to explore the idea of cycles of violence in a really surprisingly moving way by the end of the story. And also co-stars Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt, and is a really well-made time travel movie. And I think those are really difficult to make. He followed that up with a dalliance with Star Wars, as we mentioned, The Last Jedi, which was widely critically praised. A lot of people really loved it. It did very well at the box office. I was in the minority. I'm just not a huge fan of the newer Star Wars in general.
18:55 Lizzie Bassett? I'm the same with you. It was very well-made. Everybody, and it's good. I just don't care a ton about that.
19:01 Chris Winterbauer? Yeah. It's just not my cup of tea anymore. But he returned to the whodunit genre in 2019 with Knives Out. It was shot in 2018 on a $40 million budget.
19:12 Lizzie Bassett? That's a lot.
19:13 Chris Winterbauer? But affordable if you think about the names involved. You know, at this point, Chris Evans, Captain America. You have Daniel Craig, James Bond. You have Christopher Plummer. Ana de Armas is kind of, you know, coming up. Jamie Lee Curtis. It is a surprise smash hit, commercially and critically. Not only does it make over $300 million worldwide, it is selected by the National Border Review and the American Film Institute as one of the year's Top films. It's nominated for three Golden Globes and an Oscar, Best Original Screenplay. And it was one of two original, by what I could find, two original non-sequel American films to crack the top 15 at the domestic box office that year alongside Jordan Peele's Us, which is also kind of
19:56 Chris Winterbauer? an Eat the Rich story in a slightly different way. And this was really a theme of that year. You also had Ready or Not, which did very well for its budget.
20:04 Lizzie Bassett? Great movie if you've not seen it.
20:06 Chris Winterbauer? Six million dollars. Yeah, I actually preferred Ready or Not to Knives Out and was a little frustrated that Ready or Not was not getting the praise that Knives Out did. I really liked Ready or Not.
20:14 Lizzie Bassett? Knives Out knew where it put its money.
20:16 Chris Winterbauer? Yeah, definitely. You also had, of course, Parasite, Bong Joon-ho's brilliant film on Korean class warfare, which won Best Picture and really cleaned up at the Oscars that year. And I think we also had signs that certain franchises that had carried the last decade or so were kind of coming to an end.
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22:23 Chris Winterbauer? Avengers Endgame was marking the end of that phase of Marvel. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was pretty commercially divisive. It did not do that well at the box office relative to its predecessors, and it did not get great reviews. And then, of course, Captain Marvel underperformed and also became like a really weird lightning rod for a lot of toxic masculinity and discussions around Brie Larson, who's just acting in that movie. Like, she's not actually Captain Marvel. Leave her alone. It's fine. And then Netflix has this surprise whodunit of its own. Lizzie, did you ever watch Murder Mystery starring Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston on Netflix?
23:00 Lizzie Bassett? I didn't, but I am familiar with it.
23:03 Chris Winterbauer? Well, you were one of the few who didn't because it was streamed by 31 million households in the first 72 hours of its release.
23:11 Lizzie Bassett? Actually, are they on a cruise ship in this one?
23:13 Chris Winterbauer? Yes, they are on a cruise ship, yeah. They made a second one, too.
23:16 Lizzie Bassett? I did see this. That's how much it stuck with me.
23:19 Chris Winterbauer? I love Jennifer Aniston. I love Adam Sandler. It's like a very easy-watch movie.
23:24 Lizzie Bassett? Yes.
23:25 Chris Winterbauer? It was the biggest opening weekend for a film in Netflix's history. So Netflix knows whodunnits, big names. They do well on Netflix.
23:34 Lizzie Bassett? Right.
23:34 Chris Winterbauer? And the streaming wars... Are ramping up and a Knives Out sequel is greenlit by Lionsgate in early 2020. Now, this is somewhat conjecture, but the pandemic hits in early 2020. And my guess is that the Knives Out sequel was delayed by the pandemic. I could not verify that. That is just my guess. Then everybody's locked indoors and we get the launch of the streaming wars. By the way, I experienced this firsthand. The only reason at the end of the day that the second movie I directed, Moonshot, was greenlit was because HBO Max was insistent upon releasing one movie per month as part of their Max platform push. Wow. And we were ready to go. And so they just said, here, here's your budget. And we just had to figure out a way to squeeze the movie into that budget
24:19 Chris Winterbauer? so that they could release it in 11 months, basically. So the streaming wars were, everybody was going crazy and we're about to see the craziest version of it. So in March of 2021, Netflix wins a bidding war for the rights to two Knives Out sequels. Because even though Lionsgate MRC had financed the first film, they didn't own the rights to the franchise. That remained with Rian Johnson and the producer, Ram Bergman. So there's a big bidding war. Lionsgate bids, everybody bids. The package includes Daniel Craig, Rian Johnson, Ram Bergman. The value of the deal, do you know this, Lizzy? No. $469 million.
25:03 Chris Winterbauer? The first movie only made $300 million and they're only buying two more movies. They would need each of those to make like 600, $700 million, right? To exceed the value. Like one, a competing executive said of the deal, "The math doesn't work. There's no way to explain it. The world has gone mad. It's a mind boggling deal." It was just, it was Netflix flexing. Like Netflix wanted a franchise to compete with some of these other companies. The streaming wars are heating up. This is right around the time that Amazon is spending a billion dollars on the rights to the Lord of the Rings for the Rings of Power.
25:37 Chris Winterbauer? Johnson, Craig and producer Ram Bergman each made over $100 million for these two films on their deals.
25:45 Lizzie Bassett? Well, I'm very happy for them.
25:47 Chris Winterbauer? Karina, where's our next season of You Must Remember This?
25:50 Lizzie Bassett? Yeah, seriously. We need it.
25:51 Chris Winterbauer? We just love your show and we would love you to do more. So the streaming wars are cresting. They're about to collapse. So nobody knows this. And now we get to Glass Onion. So they filmed the sequel. It is released in September, the fall of 2022, September theatrical, brief window, TIFF. And then it goes onto the streaming platform in November. And it becomes their third most watched film in terms of hours viewed over the first 10 days of its launch. So it seems like despite overpaying, the investment is paying off at this point in time. So this brings us to Wake Up Dead Man. So just a couple of brief things. So Johnson was raised Christian. He was not raised Catholic.
26:34 Chris Winterbauer? He came up in the evangelical church and has very mixed feelings about organized religion. He said, has said publicly, you know, Christ was a part of his world. It was the lens he framed the world through all the way into his early twenties. And then you can probably see that changing with something like Brick, which is about as bleak as you're gonna find. But he chose to focus on Catholicism, Lizzie, for aesthetic reasons, because the churches he grew up in, he says, more resembled pottery barns. And so I definitely think you get more of a, you know, Gothic style with the Catholic churches, although they do kind of make fun of that in the movie a little bit as well.
27:08 Lizzie Bassett? Although I did find it funny that he, that they're trying to make you believe that it was upstate New York, because as soon as they were like doing the overhead shots, I was like, ah.
27:15 Chris Winterbauer? Yeah, you knew. I was like, totally, because I have never left the West Coast.
27:19 Lizzie Bassett? No, that church was too old and too well made.
27:22 Chris Winterbauer? Lizzie spotted it immediately. It was shot in the UK, although some additional footage was shot in cold spring, New York. And like Glass Onion, it was given a brief theatrical window before it premieres on Netflix today on December 12th. And so As we dive into our spoilery portion of the review, the thing that I find most interesting about the history of this film and franchise, in light of Netflix's recent, at first seemingly winning bid for Warner Brothers, although as we've now learned Paramount has launched a hostile competing bid, and Donald Trump is actually, President Donald Trump is now weighing in, because he seems very invested in the Ellisons getting all of the toys in Hollywood.
28:00 Lizzie Bassett? Yeah.
28:01 Chris Winterbauer? And we have this moment where Netflix, they've insisted, "We're not going to interfere with the theatrical releases of Warner Brothers films." But as we have seen with things like Knives Out, the theatrical windows that they're offering are very brief and in limited theaters. And I don't think they're making a big effort to promote those theatrical offerings.
28:19 Lizzie Bassett? Why would they? That's not where they're making their money.
28:23 Chris Winterbauer? Exactly. It's obligatory to get consideration at awards and prestige, and also probably to placate the artists that they're working with a little bit, who like seeing their work on the big screen. So I do think what's really interesting is that Johnson has created one of the most successful original franchises by many metrics of the last five to seven years. And despite having so much success on the big screen, in selling it to Netflix, which I don't begrudge him, "Listen, take the money and run, I get it. If I could make $469 million, God knows I would do many a thing worse than working with Netflix."
29:07 Chris Winterbauer? But in a weird sense, this proved to be a formula, Lizzie, that you mentioned works on the big screen. You have an ensemble cast with a lot of big names that really drew people out of their homes and into the theaters. And now as theaters are gasping for air, and perhaps going to be even more short on oxygen because of this Netflix deal, movies that had been proven to work in the theaters have been relegated to streaming again because of a deal like this, because Netflix can afford to spend more than anyone else. And so my question to you as we jump into our reviews... Is there any sort of obligation?
29:46 Chris Winterbauer? A lot of filmmakers, we all bemoan the death of theaters and we blame audiences for not coming out. But what about us, the filmmakers who are willing to sell to the highest bidder, even if that means we eschew the theatrical experience? Are we culpable ourselves? Who's the guilty party?
30:08 Lizzie Bassett? The guilty party is Netflix. I mean, this is the reason that, you know, the vertical integration of the studio system was broken up in the late 40s across the 50s. It impacts what reaches the consumer because it strangles the ability of the creatives to be more selective about where they are selling and who they're partnering with. And I would never begrudge a creator at this point for selling to Netflix or, you know, they have no leverage. Like, let's say this deal goes through and even if it doesn't, I believe what Netflix
30:48 Lizzie Bassett? has done is they've effectively frozen Warner Brothers' ability to create at this point. Is that right?
30:55 Chris Winterbauer? Kind of, yeah.
30:57 Lizzie Bassett? Okay, so even if they don't necessarily get this, they've frozen one of their top competitors, or at least they've, you know, hamstrung them a little bit. So when your options are extremely limited and you're a creator who is trying to survive off of what you are writing, directing, starring in whatever, you don't have a choice at a certain point. They are removing choices with all of these consolidations. And it's going to create worse content, especially because with streamers, they are so reliant on algorithms. And you gave a great example with Murder Mystery, starring Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler, like- I'm sure the algorithm was like, this is perfect, you know?
31:42 Lizzie Bassett? It doesn't have to be good. It has to get eyeballs and it has to, it is driven by watch time. We saw a similar thing happen with YouTube where that algorithm changed to watch time and not to the benefit of anyone, I don't think. Anyway, this is a very long-winded way of saying that I think these deals are a big problem. I mean, that's not, I'm not saying anything new. Yes, they're a problem from like a legal and business perspective, but they're going to be a massive problem from a consuming of art perspective. And when artists are limited in terms of what and who their outlets are, you're going to get shittier and shittier content and you're going to get less risky
32:25 Lizzie Bassett? content, which may seem counterintuitive because it seems like the streamers might have lower risk. I actually don't think that's true, given how much they rely on algorithmic data and information. Anyway, so all that to say, no, I don't begrudge Rian Johnson. I begrudge anybody who is letting this kind of deal happen because it shouldn't. It shouldn't. There needs to be diversity of platforms.
32:48 Chris Winterbauer? All right. Well, Ryan, you've been exonerated. So let's talk about your movie a little bit more.
32:54 Speaker 03 Spoiler alert.
32:55 Chris Winterbauer? Lizzie, we've mentioned what we think works in this movie. And I'd like to point out a few things that I think were interesting. So it feels like Johnson wants to take some punches. We mentioned the cult of personality. Look, he is dancing around comparisons in my mind to two people in particular. So the more obscure figure is Doug Wilson, who is an evangelical pastor. He is the head of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho. My understanding is he is Pete Hegseth's pastor, which is how he has risen in prominence over the last seven or eight months. And he is hardcore and very open about that.
33:37 Chris Winterbauer? He was on Ross Douthat's podcast, Interesting Times for the New York Times recently. And he is very literal with his interpretation of the Bible. He believes in theocracy, et cetera. And so on the one hand, I think you have a sort of revivalist feel to Josh Brolin's character. And then there are also obvious parallels that he is drawing to someone like President Trump and the ability to radicalize people.
34:02 Lizzie Bassett? Through Daryl McCormack's character.
34:04 Chris Winterbauer? Through Daryl McCormack's character, who's very funny.
34:07 Lizzie Bassett? Yes.
34:07 Chris Winterbauer? And In some ways, I think he pulls, I don't think he's as interested in that as he seems to think he is, right? There is a commentary he is making on the idea of rage bait, which I believe was one dictionary's word of the year in 2025.
34:25 Lizzie Bassett? Great.
34:26 Chris Winterbauer? And we get, there's a very pedantic quality, I think, to some of these discussions in the movie that can feel a little, I find a little dry.
34:34 Lizzie Bassett? They're the most tell, don't show.
34:36 Chris Winterbauer? Yes.
34:37 Lizzie Bassett? And that's, that was my biggest problem with the movie as a whole, is where the dialogue reaches a place where he is telling you how to think versus, versus telling the story. It is guilty of that, I think, in some pretty noticeable places where the dialogue gets quite clunky.
34:54 Chris Winterbauer? Whereas I do think there are some more elegant passages.
34:57 Lizzie Bassett? I agree.
34:57 Chris Winterbauer? Where he shows the complexity and the humanity of individuals. Josh O'Connor's priest, taking a long detour from his investigation into ostensibly his own exoneration, to comfort a member of his flock and to pray for this, this woman, played by Bridget Everett, who I really love, is an actress and a comedian. And I think it does a wonderful job of showing the inclusive qualities of religion and the ways in which, yes, you may have a relationship for God, but it can also be so comforting to know that there is just another person who is praying for you, right? That, that she can hear this man's voice and that he cares for her and she just feels
35:40 Chris Winterbauer? alone and she doesn't have someone to talk to and she's dealing with an aging, a very sick parent. That one resonated in particular with me. I have a relative going through something that dissimilar. And so I, I loved those moments so much in this movie. And Josh O'Connor does really ground the movie. And then you hit these extended soliloquies, mostly by Daniel Craig, that just, again, it left me feeling like I was reading. A very smartly written, but somewhat showy and a little flowery paper by like a very smart student, right? As opposed to, you know, compelling cinema. And so that was such a double edged sword for me, watching this movie, where on the one hand, I was like, yes, I think this is an interesting thing to say. But on the other
36:25 Chris Winterbauer? hand, could you have made it more visual, you know, in certain moments? Or could we have leaned into it a little more in certain moments? Felt a little watered down, I thought, in certain bits.
36:35 Lizzie Bassett? It did. It was like, my takeaway from this movie was that organized religion of any kind opens a door, you know, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and that it opens a door to the wrong kind of person, but it also is an opportunity for the right kind of person to serve a very needed role in their community, which is what we see with Josh O'Connor's character versus Josh Brolin's character, and how opportunistic Josh Brolin's character is, how hypocritical, how vicious he is. And it felt to me like this movie was, in many ways, a cautionary tale to, you know, be careful who you're listening
37:17 Lizzie Bassett? to, but very much an encouragement of faith and the importance of having faith in your life, even for Benoit Blanc at the end. It's not necessarily a religious faith. I liked that, and I wish that he'd been maybe even a little bit more comfortable to lean into that. I mentioned earlier, I wanted to put a pin in the idea that all fingers point towards Judd. I think this is one of the most unsuccessful things about this movie, is that the way that they set up the murder, and we're fully in spoiler territory now. Josh Brolin, obviously, his character is who is murdered, and it happens while Judd,
37:55 Lizzie Bassett? Josh O'Connor, is on stage. Except that they don't ever convincingly set up a way, to me at least, in which Josh O'Connor could have done it. They kind of try to, you know, reverse engineer something about three quarters of the way through the movie, but I never really believed it. There's never any question, as far as I was concerned, as to whether or not Josh O'Connor did it, and I wish there had been.
38:22 Chris Winterbauer? Well, and candidly, there's really, so Lizzie pointed out, an hour in, whatever, 50 minutes in, that she said, it was Glenn Close.
38:31 Chris Winterbauer? Martha, who the caretaker of the church and her love interest, the stoic Samson, played by Thomas Hayden Church, who I always love, and Glenn Close is wonderful in this.
38:39 Lizzie Bassett? Yes, she is.
38:40 Chris Winterbauer? And yes, she is the only individual, the minute you pointed out, I was like, yeah, that makes sense. She's the only individual with anything at stake, large enough to potentially motivate murder. And this goes to, I think, the problem of the setup of this. This is set up as an ensemble film, but it is not at the end of the day. It's a character piece for Josh O'Connor and for Glenn Close.
39:02 Lizzie Bassett? And they should have let it just be that, because by watering it down with this massive ensemble, you are queued up to suspect everyone and...
39:11 Chris Winterbauer? And want more from them. And you don't get it. Like, Andrew Scott is, gets nine lines as an outsider science fiction writer. Kaylee Spanney, who I love, is candidly wasted as a former violinist who is suffering from maybe a psychosomatic, cellist deteriorating spine disease. I mean, Jeremy Renner's arguably given more to do, but not by that much, just like in a mechanical sense. Mila Kunis, as the police chief, again, is, just seems to be there to provide some external pressure to Benoit Blanc. It just, it feels like there are all these characters on the periphery that don't ultimately impact the trajectory of the characters who matter.
39:53 Lizzie Bassett? No.
39:54 Chris Winterbauer? And so they feel distracting.
39:55 Lizzie Bassett? In fact, they dilute the mystery, because they make it so much less impactful when you're being told to look at everyone, but there's actually no real reason to look at anyone other than like, three people.
40:07 Chris Winterbauer? The only other character who is impactful to the plot, and I, and I was really glad we had them, was Daryl McCormack's sigh.
40:14 Lizzie Bassett? Yes.
40:15 Chris Winterbauer? He is an integral to the plot in a lot of ways.
40:17 Lizzie Bassett? Well, and Kerry Washington. Yeah, the two of them.
40:19 Chris Winterbauer? A little bit Kerry Wash, I loved Kerry Washington's performance, but I don't know, and I guess she's connected through him, but I still felt she was pretty tangential.
40:26 Lizzie Bassett? Yeah, that's true.
40:27 Chris Winterbauer? At the end of the day. So I, yeah, I ultimately felt like the mystery elements... Felt tacked on or obligatory in some way. And what could have been, instead of, like, I was imagining, and this is so easy, by the way, and I hate when people do it, when they Monday morning quarterback a movie like this, which I couldn't make. But I guess it felt like the movie maybe Rian Johnson wanted to make was a movie about a priest who is wrongfully accused.
40:56 Lizzie Bassett? Yes.
40:57 Chris Winterbauer? And Benoit Blanc has to save him when the priest's religion keeps getting in the way of exonerating himself, right? That's the interesting tension, is that Josh O'Connor's faith, honesty, and humility leads him, in Benoit's eyes, towards self-destruction, not absolution.
41:16 Lizzie Bassett? Right, to the point where Benoit protects him.
41:18 Chris Winterbauer? Exactly, but then what's interesting is Benoit's arc, which I don't think is completely spelled out, but I do appreciate it, is that he actually takes a very poignant religious lesson at the end of the film, and we've actually talked about this biblical passage before, it's Matthew 7, 3-5, the, "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" It's focusing on the sins of others and not your own. And I do think that the final turn for Benoit's character that is really interesting is that he denies himself the big moment that he lives for, the Benoit Blanc aha moment, where he points out to the villain, "You did it, and this is how you did it."
41:56 Lizzie Bassett? Which he literally says, "This is what I do, this is everything I want."
42:02 Chris Winterbauer? And he denies it to allow Glenn Close's Martha the grace to come to confess on her own. And what I liked about that is, I have felt for a while now, that on all sides of the political spectrum, or internet spectrum, or whatever, we don't allow each other the room or grace to be wrong, and then come to find what's right. And, you know, I can say on this podcast, it'll often get pointed out to me when I'm wrong about things, be it facts or interpretations. And when somebody just says, "You're an idiot," you have done nothing to change my mind.
42:44 Chris Winterbauer? But when we get kind emails, which we do very often, "Hey, you know, Chris..." You may have had the wrong take on this, blah, blah, blah, but I'm given the room to to step to that conclusion. It's so effective. And I do like that that became the kind of message or the the turn for Benoit's character at the at the end of the film, the know it all has to actually cede the stage in some way.
43:10 Lizzie Bassett? Also, that he had faith that she would do it.
43:12 Chris Winterbauer? And Yes.
43:13 Lizzie Bassett? And she did.
43:14 Chris Winterbauer? Right. He he trusted her moral goodness at the end of the
43:17 Lizzie Bassett? Exactly. He trusted that she was not evil at her core and that she would do the right thing at the last moment. And she did.
43:25 Chris Winterbauer? He was banking on her better angels. And we that's an it's a wonderful idea that we should hope to want to let people exceed our expectations rather than than fall to them.
43:37 Lizzie Bassett? Yes.
43:38 Chris Winterbauer? And and then Glenn Close gives a great performance, obviously, at the end. She's a
43:41 Lizzie Bassett? Boy, is she good at dying.
43:43 Chris Winterbauer? She is so good. She's dying for so long.
43:45 Lizzie Bassett? Crazy.
43:45 Chris Winterbauer? She does a great job.
43:46 Lizzie Bassett? Dying for a really long time. And it's like, you can see the moment that the life leaves her eyes. And I don't know how she does that.
43:54 Chris Winterbauer? She's really good. She stays so still. A lot of actors can't stay that still. She does a great job.
44:00 Lizzie Bassett? Very still, but also just like the it's it's like the tiniest shift in the focus of her eyes, and then it's gone. Anyway, love Glenn Close.
44:09 Chris Winterbauer? They killed her. Glenn Close died through this movie.
44:12 Lizzie Bassett? She's dead.
44:12 Chris Winterbauer? She's gone. No, obviously, she's not. But she's she's really wonderful in the film. Just a couple of things I want to point out. I do think the movie is shot and lit wonderfully. There are some really interesting uses of the changing of the quality of light that comes through the church windows. We get the full sun and the kind of golden warmth of God, and then kind of the gray cloudiness that seeps through as you get into the more heretical discussions. The shots in the forest at night, especially in particular, when Thomas Haden Church's character is walking with the lantern, I think, are really fun.
44:43 Lizzie Bassett? There's some very funny.
44:44 Chris Winterbauer? Yeah. And there are some really funny sight gags in the movie, especially in the back half, like when Glenn Close is disposing of Jeremy Renner's body, and he's had just like crunk on every stairs.
44:53 Lizzie Bassett? We all laughed out loud at that. Yes.
44:54 Chris Winterbauer? Yeah, there were some very funny moments. And so I yeah, I think I agree with you, Lizzie. I wonder if I definitely still feel that ultimately, certain elements of the messaging, etc., were a little milquetoast, would be my argument, although he to
45:12 Chris Winterbauer? Rian Johnson's defense, he may say, look, this is the way that I can invite the most amount of people into this conversation, which I would say totally fair. But I also agree, I wonder if there's a reality versus expectations element of it, which is like you go in for a murder mystery. And then there's a lot of, you know, just hanging out at the church and getting to know Josh Brolin's character and Josh O'Connor's character. And then it's quite a while before Benoit, you know, shows up, et cetera. And there is, it's like that unusual device, as we meant, that we haven't mentioned, it's set up with Josh O'Connor's dialogue voiceover. And it's a letter he's writing Benoit Blanc. And so they're trying to hint like, yes, he is coming. But I almost wonder if we didn't need that.
45:54 Chris Winterbauer? And if we'd just been settled into the world more, it might've worked a little bit better. I'm not sure.
45:59 Lizzie Bassett? I'm always a fan of that, of losing the exposition, although I think it's well done here in many ways. And, you know, the, the letter he's writing is very funny. The last thing I'll say is I am so glad that Josh O'Connor is having the career arc that he is. You know, he was so wonderful as Charles in The Crown, not an appealing character or role. So it is honestly, it was a bit surprising when he started to break out in like, he's the love interest of Zendaya in, you know, in a movie.
46:34 Chris Winterbauer? But he's also a little nasty in Challengers, too.
46:37 Lizzie Bassett? He's totally nasty.
46:38 Chris Winterbauer? So in this movie, I was surprised, it's like the good, the pure goodness comes through and you really believe it.
46:44 Lizzie Bassett? He's a wonderful actor. He's clearly so smart. He-
46:49 Chris Winterbauer? Does a good American accent.
46:50 Lizzie Bassett? Great American accent, really good. Also Daryl McCormack, great.
46:54 Chris Winterbauer? Does a good American accent as well. Yeah.
46:55 Lizzie Bassett? Yeah. And I just, I'm glad to see him getting more and more roles. I think the roles he's taking are very interesting. Love him. Love you, Josh O'Connor. Can't wait to see what you do next.
47:06 Chris Winterbauer? And a banner year for Josh Brolin. Weapons, one of my favorites of this year. I thought he was excellent in Weapons.
47:13 Lizzie Bassett? I thought he was a little misused in this.
47:16 Chris Winterbauer? I know, no, yeah, yeah. I made a comment to Lizzie about swapping two of the characters. Swapping Thomas Hayden Church and Josh Brolin early on. And then what's funny is they're used as doppelgangers for one another.
47:27 Lizzie Bassett? Yes.
47:28 Chris Winterbauer? In the back half of the movie as well. But I just always love like the sideways horn dog version of Thomas Hayden Church. And I thought that could have been very funny in the Monsignor Wick role. Although Josh Brolin, there is a, an intensity to him.
47:43 Lizzie Bassett? Scarier.
47:44 Chris Winterbauer? That can be scary. Exactly. That I do think was well used.
47:47 Lizzie Bassett? It's totally well used. Um, the last thing I'll say, just to clarify what I mean about, I think Josh Brolin, could have been, they could have done a little bit more with him is that that's so often what we see with Josh Brolin, is that there's like a sinister quality to him. And it felt like a bit of obvious casting to me. And then when he ends up being a total hypocritical slime ball, it's not a big surprise.
48:10 Chris Winterbauer? There's nothing interesting about his character, really. Johnson never subverts it. They subvert the expectations for a number of characters, but never that one.
48:19 Lizzie Bassett? No, and they set him up in a way that I thought they were going to. And that was one of the biggest disappointments for me about this is that they, he doesn't go anywhere. And they don't really do anything with him.
48:28 Chris Winterbauer? No, this is true. They really, they flip almost every major character, including his mother, who we only meet through flashback, and they never flip him. He's just saying, he kind of sucks the whole way through.
48:40 Lizzie Bassett? Yeah. He's exactly who you think he is.
48:42 Chris Winterbauer? Yeah. You maybe need that one to ground you. Who knows?
48:45 Lizzie Bassett? All right. Well, I think that about wraps up our coverage of Wake Up Dead Man, A Knives Out Mystery. Chris, thank you for all of the information that you brought to light here.
48:55 Chris Winterbauer? Of course. Uh, guys, we hope you enjoyed this bonus episode, mostly review of Wake Up Dead Man, A Knives Out Mystery. I am sure it's going to make a million billion Netflix bucks in the next few days. If you guys are interested in further discussing this film with us, you can join our Patreon. You can head to www.patreon.com/whatwentwrongpodcast. You can join for free and comment on our public posts. Or if you want to join, for $5, you will get all of our episodes ad free and all of our bonus episodes. And two weeks from today, on December 26th, we are going to be releasing a little review of Avatar: Fire and Ash. Shot in New Zealand, hence the accent. So if you're interested in that, head to our Patreon, www.patreon.com/whatwentwrongpodcast. Karina?
49:43 Chris Winterbauer? Give us more You Must Remember This. And if you guys haven't listened to You Must Remember This, it's so good. Go check it out. It's just, I mean, that is the research level we aspire to. Her podcast is incredible. Thank you for listening.
49:56 Lizzie Bassett? Thank you very much. And the last thing I'll say, Chris, is you brought up Netflix bucks. And all I have to say is, it's Monopoly money in more ways than one.
50:05 Chris Winterbauer? Wow. How long have you been waiting to drop that one?
50:07 Lizzie Bassett? The whole time you were talking.
50:08 Chris Winterbauer? The whole time.
50:08 Lizzie Bassett? It took a really long time. I couldn't get it in.
50:11 Chris Winterbauer? I could tell. I could tell.
50:12 Lizzie Bassett? And then you just did not.
50:16 Speaker 03 Thanks for listening to this special full review of Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives-Out Mystery. To listen to full reviews in the future, join us on Patreon at the $5 tier or above, or subscribe on Apple.
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