The 66th BFI London Film Festival (5 to 16 October) in partnership with American Express announced that this year’s closing night gala will be filmmaker Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, starring Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr, Jessica Henwick and Madelyn Cline with Kate Hudson and Dave Bautista.
The film will receive its European premiere on Sunday 16 October at the Southbank Centre in the Royal Festival Hall, ahead of its release into UK cinemas and subsequent launch on Netflix. Rian Johnson, Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Leslie Odom Jr, Kate Hudson and Madelyn Cline will be in attendance with other names soon to be confirmed. There will also be simultaneous preview screenings of the film taking place at additional cinemas across the UK.
In the follow-up to Rian Johnson’s 2018 Knives Out, Daniel Craig reprises the role of master sleuth, Detective Benoit Blanc, travelling to Greece to peel back the layers of a mystery involving a new cast of colourful suspects. Both films were produced by Johnson and Ram Bergman, who will also be in attendance, under their T-Street banner, and the previous film earned Johnson an Academy Award nomination for best adapted screenplay.
Writer/director/producer of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Rian Johnson, said: “I’m thrilled to be back at LFF with Glass Onion, and it’s an honour to be closing the festival. A proper whodunnit really does belong in London, so it feels a bit like coming home!”
Tricia Tuttle, BFI London Film Festival director, said: “Rian Johnson’s Knives Out was a major hit when we hosted the European premiere at the festival in 2019. Our audiences adored the film’s wit and that it tipped its very stylish hat to the wonderful tradition of British on-screen sleuths. And here, Rian Johnson strikes gold again with the help of the year’s hottest ensemble cast. Like its predecessor, Glass Onion is entertaining and culturally literate in equal measure, making some hilarious, razor sharp observations about the world we live in. The European premiere of the Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery will bring the house down as the closing gala of the 66th BFI London Film Festival!”
The BFI London Film Festival hosted the European premiere of Knives Out at the festival in 2019 as the American Express Gala with Rian Johnson and his cast on the red carpet in London’s Leicester Square to the delight of UK audiences.
The 66th BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express takes place from Wednesday 5 October to Sunday 16 October, 2022. The BFI LFF programme launch will take place on Thursday 1 September 2022.
