is the upcoming third movie in the Knives Out series of murder mystery movies, and it looks like it is already fixing my biggest problem with Glass Onion. The first teaser for Wake Up Dead Man is out now, giving a brief glimpse at the third Benoit Blanc mystery ahead of its December 2025 release. Although it is still several months away, it has reignited my interest in the franchise, with it addressing some of the criticisms that were levied at Glass Onion.

I was a massive fan of Knives Out, and after hearing director Rian Johnson's plans for the franchise's future, I couldn't wait. Rian Johnson teamed up with Netflix to make two sequels to Knives Out, both of which would follow Daniel Craig's Detective Benoit Blanc as he investigated mysteries completely disconnected from the first film. Glass Onion was the first of these sequels, and while I did enjoy it, I didn't like it quite as much as the first film. However, Wake Up Dead Man is looking to do something wildly different from its predecessors.

Wake Up Dead Man's first teaser has been released, and while it is just a minute in length, it already proves that the third Knives Out film is going for a far more serious tone. Visually, Wake Up Dead Man is incredibly dark. The lighting is high-contrast and most of the costumes and backgrounds are black, grey, green, and purple. The music choice indicates that the film will have a dark tone as well, with the teaser being scored by Ralph Stanley's "O Death," a dark song with religious undertones where the singer pleads with Death to keep living.

Although the story of Wake Up Dead Man is still shrouded in mystery, it seems to be more serious as well. When compared to Knives Out and Glass Onion, . The teaser also features clips of dialogue talking about weighty subjects like religion, miracles, and death. There are no jokes or comedic moments in the trailer, and while the teaser could be misleading viewers about the tone, Wake Up Dead Man definitely seems to be a change of pace from its comedic predecessors.

While I still enjoyed Glass Onion, many critics pointed out that the sequel felt a bit too silly, something that I agree with. The bright colors, weird comedic beats, and wacky characters turned Glass Onion into a comedy murder mystery, a label reinforced by references to things like Among Us and Jeremy Renner hot sauce. While it would have been hard to tell this story with a serious tone, Glass Onion leaned too far into comedy after Knives Out.

While there are heightened characters in Knives Out, none of them are as silly as the characters in Glass Onion. In fact, Benoit Blanc is the silliest character in Knives Out, with. Blanc is surrounded by even sillier characters in Glass Onion, drowning out his presence. The time-specific jokes and political commentary aren't bad, but they don't feel like the timeless Agatha Christie novels that Knives Out lovingly homages.

However, having a comedic Glass Onion and a serious Wake Up Dead Man is not a flaw. In fact, it is the best quality of the Knives Out franchise. Like the Hercule Poirot stories that inspire it, the Knives Out franchise is full of wildly different locations, characters, stories, and tones, all united by the presence of Benoit Blanc. As long as Benoit Blanc is there and someone is dead, it can be a Knives Out film, and this is one of the reasons why I love it so much.

If Wake Up Dead Man would have been a comedy, I would have been disappointed. Not because I didn't like Glass Onion, but because having two comedies in a row would have felt like wasted potential. Even Kenneth Branagh's Hercule Poirot movies recognize this, and I am glad to see Rian Johnson leaning into this quality with .