Daniel Craig and Rian Johnson Tease More 'Knives' After Twisty, Fun 'Glass Onion' Kills Toronto Film Festival

Consider "Glass Onion" another triumphant case for Detective Benoit Blanc.

As evidenced by the enthusiastic response to the first screening on Saturday, Rian Johnson once again charmed the crowds at the Toronto Film Festival with "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery", the highly anticipated sequel to the 2019 hit thriller.

Johnson briefly addressed moviegoers before the movie started playing, delivering a sweet shout to his grandfather. "My grandfather Howard Johnson came here tonight, he's in the audience," Johnson revealed. “Grandfather, you are my role model. You are the reason I make movies today, I love you so much and I'm so happy you're here.

Also seated, of course, in the Princess of Wales Theater was Daniel Craig, who returns as quirky private eye with a southern accent, and his co-stars Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr. and Kate Hudson. Dave Bautista, who also stars in the film - about a group of wealthy friends who receive a mysterious invitation to a reclusive millionaire's private island - was not at the screening.

Netflix boss Ted Sarandos and CAA's Bryan Lourd, who helped orchestrate the transfer mega-watt from the movie to the streamer, were among the packed house. The two-hour film played to gasps, cheers and hoarse laughter, culminating in a brief one-minute standing ovation. Afterwards, the cast took the stage and took questions from the crowd, although audience members were encouraged to avoid talking about spoilers.

After some quick inquiries (no, Johnson didn't use 35mm cameras. yes , production took place at a resort in Greece), someone asked the entire cast to take the tour and share their favorite scene to film.

"Tell everyone in the audience?" Hahn cracked.

"Everyone the fuck," Craig said.

Hudson added, "Loved seeing us all together. We shot everything separately.“

Monae got sentimental saying it was the "scene you didn't see" . The scene where we all work together on this film. Start the audible "aww" (and then the laughter) from the crowd.

A movie buff asked Johnson what it was like to make a movie smarter than the audience .

"My grandfather, ladies and gentlemen," the director joked. But he rejected the hypothesis. "It's to take them for a ride rather than a game of chess. At the end of the day, the movies are there to sit in a big crowd and have fun."

The ecstatic TIFF reception of "Glass Onion" is familiar to Johnson, who launched the first "Knives Out" at the festival in pre-pandemic times. The crowd-pleasing murder mystery became a sleeper box office hit, making a killer of $165 million in North America and $311 million worldwide against a budget of $40 million. Johnson, who wrote the screenplay in addition to directing, picked up an Oscar nomination in the original screenplay category.

How do you make cinematic lightning strike twice?

"The line I kept coming back to and referring to from the first movie was, 'C It's a rollercoaster and not a crossword puzzle,” said writer, director and producer Rian Johnson in an interview with Netflix's Tudum. "It's a common mistake to write thrillers, to think you're doing crossword puzzles and the fun is that the audience is going to actually analyze it all and figure it out."

Craig, whose scene-ch...