RIAN JOHNSON AND RAM BERGMAN
How the creative team behind Knives Out proved to be the sharpest tools in the box
Rian Johnson and Ram Bergman’s journey to the Star Wars universe began at a film festival that now seems far, far away—sundance 2005, where Johnson made his feature debut in the US Dramatic Competition with Brick. Starring Joseph Gordonlevitt and inspired by the ’30s/’40s hardboiled crime novels of Dashiell Hammett and James M. Cain, the jive-talking noir thriller, set in a small-town high school, stood out a mile from its indie peers. Produced by Ram Bergman on a shoestring budget of $450,000, Brick won Johnson the year’s Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision.
Originality would become a keyword for future Bergman-johnson joints, from 2008’s stylish con caper The Brothers Bloom, to 2012’s time-twisting sci-fi Looper, and 2017’s critically acclaimed but fanboy-frustrating Star Wars: The Last Jedi. But it was 2019’s surprise smash Knives Out that took the industry by surprise. Reprising Johnson’s interest in mystery thrillers—owing a debt this time to Britain’s Queen of Crime Agatha Christie—it starred Daniel Craig as detective Benoit Blanc, investigating an all-star cast (Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson et al) over the death of a famous author (Christopher Plummer in one of his last roles). The budget this time was $40 million and returned a global gross north of $311 million, but Johnson and Bergman’s T-street Productions retained the rights, which were available on a pictureby-picture basis. In March, it was announced that, after a fierce but low-key auction involving all the streaming majors, parts two and three of the Knives Out franchise had gone to Netflix for an eye-popping $450 million.
Johnson and Bergman did not hang around; as lockdown in Europe began to ease, the pair began pre-production in Belgrade, Serbia, planning to shoot interiors locally and exteriors in Greece. The second time around, big names have not been hard to net, with Dave Bautista, Edward Norton, Kate Hudson and Leslie Odom Jr. signing on. But the funny thing is, Johnson and Bergman managed to beat the Hollywood system at its own game without even meaning to try. Speaking just before the release of the original Knives Out, Johnson almost said as much: “I’ve never thought in terms of sequels to any movies I’ve made,” he said, “but the idea of doing another Benoit Blanc mystery, in a new location, with a new cast, treating it like Agatha Christie would treat another book—that just seems like a blast.” ★