Johnson is relieving a little of the mystery around his leading detective (Picture: Getty/Netflix)
Knives Out franchise director Rian Johnson has appeared to confirm Detective Benoit Blanc’s sexuality at the London Film Festival press conference for its upcoming sequel.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery sees the return of the flamboyant southern gentleman detective played by Daniel Craig, as he travels to Greece to peel back the layers of a mystery involving a new cast of colourful suspects.
Featuring new stars including Kate Hudson, Edward Norton, Dave Bautista, Janelle Monáe and Kathryn Hahn, the glittering ensemble descended on London alongside writer and director Johnson ahead of the gala screening at the Royal Festival Hall at the Southbank Centre on Sunday night, which will close the festival this year.
As the combined Hollywood star power dazzled those in the room, questions were asked of the film and its characters – and that included one on Blanc’s private life, where it was revealed that Johnson was convinced his creation was gay.
The Digital Fix was the first to share the tidbit, as the account tweeted out: ‘It looks like @rianjohnson has just confirmed that Benoit Blanc is gay, answering the question with an empathetic [sic] ‘yes’.’
Another attendee corroborated the statement and listed the revelation of Blanc being ‘officially queer’ as one of the highlights of the press conference, adding: ‘When I tell you that the whole room went wild.’
Janelle Monáe, Edward Norton, Kate Hudson, Daniel Craig and Ram Bergman at the Glass Onion press conference on Sunday (Picture: Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for BFI)
Daniel Craig’s Blanc was first seen in 2019’s Knives Out (Picture: Lionsgate)
Knives Out was a major international hit when it was first released in 2019, and featured the likes of Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Ana De Armas.
With Craig having signed on for the already announced Knives Out 3, the 54-year-old actor revealed he had no qualms about turning the initial film into a successful franchise, following his stint in five movies as iconic British spy, James Bond.
The star told Empire magazine that he’d ‘spent the past 15 years of my life trying to do that in a franchise’.
Writer-director Johnson (pictured here, second right, with Dave Bautista, Leslie Odom Jr. and Craig) initially said he didn’t want to delve too much into Blanc’s private life (Picture: Dave J Hogan/Getty Images)
He also reckoned ‘if you’ve got the right people in the room and the right talent, then you can do it.’
However, the news of Blanc’s personal life might come as a bit of a surprise given Johnson’s previous insistence that he likes to have an element of mystery surrounding his detective.
Discussing what fans can expect of the sequel, the Star Wars: The Last Jedi director added to the publication: ‘There’s definitely more Blanc, but it’s not very interesting to me, the notion of building out Benoit’s life.
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‘Like with Poirot and Miss Marple, what’s fun is how the elements of Benoit’s character reveal themselves through his act of solving each one of these mysteries.’
Metro.co.uk has contacted a rep for Rian Johnson for confirmation.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery hits cinemas on November 23 before heading to Netflix on December 23.
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The Knives Out sequel hits cinemas next month and Netflix in December.