We've been eagerly awaiting director Rian Johnson's follow-up to 2019's delightful Knives Out, and now we have the final trailer for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. Daniel Craig and his Southern drawl are back and in better form than ever as quirky detective Benoit Blanc, and he has an equally colorful all-star ensemble cast of suspects.

As we've reported previously, Knives Out premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was an instant hit, and word of mouth spread quickly. The film ended up grossing $311 million worldwide—the top-grossing film in 2019 not based on existing IP. It was my favorite film of 2019. In my review, I praised Johnson's deft ability to mix dark subject matter with a lighter touch in his old-school classic whodunnit: "Think Clue meets Murder on the Orient Express—or any number of adaptations of novels by the grande dame of murder mysteries, Agatha Christie—both of which the director cited as influences via a 2019 Twitter thread of movie posters."

So naturally there was going to be a sequel... or two. Lionsgate originally took on the project, but in 2021 Netflix won a bidding war for the rights to the film plus a second sequel, beating out both Amazon and Apple with a whopping $469 million bid. Johnson wrote the script for Glass Onion during the pandemic, inspired particularly by the Christie-based "tropical getaway" whodunnit Evil Under the Sun (1982), as well as a 1973 film called The Last of Sheila—an underappreciated gem.

In addition to Craig, and Edward Norton as tech billionaire Miles Bron, the cast includes Janelle Monáe as a tech entrepreneur named Cassandra "Andi" Brand; Kathryn Hahn as Claire Debella, an ambitious governor of Connecticut keen to run for the US Senate; Leslie Odom Jr. as one of Bron's scientists, Lionel Toussaint; Kate Hudson as a former supermodel turned fashion designer named Birdie Jay; Jessica Henwick as Birdie's assistant, Peg; Dave Bautista as a YouTube star named Duke Cody; Ethan Hawke as Miles' assistant; Dallas Roberts as Claire's husband; Jackie Hoffman as Duke's mother; and Madelyn Cline as Duke's assistant (and girlfriend) Whiskey. Natasha Lyonne, Hugh Grant, and Yo-Yo Ma will also make appearances, and the late Stephen Sondheim and Angela Lansbury play themselves in a video chat—the final film appearances for both.

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The first teaser dropped in early September, showing the various guests attempting to solve different puzzles. This final trailer gives us a better sense of their larger-than-life personalities—a sharp contrast to the more intimate family dynamics featured in the original Knives Out. “They’re all performing,” Johnson told Netflix. “They’re all operating in an elevated way. It’s not a family in the middle of New England working their stuff out. These are people who are all making their living, whether it’s as politicians or as rock star scientists, or as fashion magnates.”

The trailer opens with the guests arriving on Miles' island, beginning with Hudson's Birdie, who is clearly a bit of a party girl. Then Benoit Blanc arrives, and Miles seems genuinely nonplussed to see him. One suspects someone else may have surreptitiously invited Blanc, but given that Johnson no doubt will employ twist after twist, who knows? At dinner, Miles explains the game he has planned for the weekend: he's hidden clues all around the island, and his guests must solve his murder. "Once you're dead, will we still be able to talk to you?" Duke Cody asks. Miles assures him he won't be playing dead the whole weekend. Whoever can name the killer wins the game.

Of course, the lights unexpectedly go out, and an actual murder takes place. The guests are supposed to be friends, but it looks like those bonds are fairly fragile, and most of them probably have a motive, in fine whodunit fashion. And more killings might transpire if the murderer needs to cover his tracks. And Blanc turns out to have a powerful antipathy toward the classic board game Clue. Andi mentions that he must be good at the game. Apparently not. "I'm very bad at dumb things," he says peevishly. “Ticking boxes, running around, searching all the rooms... It’s just a terrible, terrible game.” (One can't help but recall that the Thrombey mansion in Knives Out was described as an elaborate Clue board come to life.)

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery made its international debut at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10. The film opens in select theaters for a limited run from November 23–29, 2022. It will begin streaming on Netflix on December 23, 2022, just in time for Christmas.