If you’ve seen “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” you know, like its predecessor, “Knives Out,” it’s a delicate, intricate web of intrigue with lots of characters and several mystery strings that can be pulled on. Cleverly written and directed by Rian Johnson (“Knives Out,” “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”), “Glass Onion” spins a lot of plates, including a dense murder mystery and an all-star cast that includes Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick, Madelyn Cline with Kate Hudson and Dave Bautista.
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In this delightful, charming sequel, Detective Benoit Blanc (Craig) travels to Greece to peel back the layers of a mystery involving a new cast of colorful suspects. At its center is an arrogant Elon Musk-like billionaire (Norton), all his friends complicit in his dubious success, and a partner from the past that was shunned from his fortune looking for a bit of revenge (Monáe).
But piecing it all together and making a fabulous script work on the screen isn’t easy either. In this exclusive editing featurette we’re thrilled to present today, titled “A Murder Mystery Magic Trick: The Editing of Glass Onion,” Johnson and his longtime editor Bob Ducsay—who started working with him on “Looper”—detail the complexities of having to balance the details and clues of a murder mystery with the performances of an all-star cast that you want to see and luxuriate with on screen.
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Creating and servicing the shape of such a film means assembling both macro and micro perspectives, a bold structure balancing a vast ensemble of characters, and of course, still keeping it all super entertaining for the audience. It’s a magic trick that is much harder than it feels.
“Trying to make it effortless to watch for the audience is the big challenge,” Johnson said. “And Bob just dove into it.”
“Particularly when it comes to performance, you get into the tiniest minutia,” Ducsay explained. “And it is absolutely the most exciting part of editing a movie, especially when you have such great actors like we do in ‘Glass Onion.’”
Having already had a quick theatrical run, “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” debuts on Netflix on December 23. Check out this new exclusive editing featurette below.
