It wouldn’t be a post-pandemic era star-filled ensemble if at least one member didn’t raise more than a few eyebrows. Oppenheimer had Casey Affleck and now Wake Up Dead Man—the next Knives Out mystery—has Mila Kunis (via Deadline). The controversial actor is the latest in a flurry of casting announcements for the Rian Johnson flick that have come out over the past few days. She’ll be joining Josh O’Connor, Cailee Spaeny, Andrew Scott, Kerry Washington, Jeremy Renner, Glenn Close, Daniel Craig, and probably more, if the pace of the previous announcements is anything to go by.
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If you don’t know why Kunis may not receive the same celebratory fanfare as some of her co-stars have, last fall, she and her husband, Ashton Kutcher, caught a lot of heat when letters they had written in support of their former That ‘70s Show co-star and convicted rapist Danny Masterson were made public. While the couple has since apologized and stepped down from the board of the anti-child-trafficking group Kutcher co-founded, it never quite felt like enough.
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Even so, it seems Hollywood is open to letting Kunis return. In addition to Wake Up Dead Man, she’s also set to star in Hallie Meyers-Shyer’s dramedy Goodrich, a romance film called The 47 Night Stand, and Will Gluck’s Jackpot, alongside Bryan Cranston and Jennifer Garner. Recently, she’s starred in the 2022 Netflix film Luckiest Girl Alive, as well as one episode of That ’70s Show spinoff, That ’90s Show.
While it was initially tempting to try to suss out the nature of Benoit Blanc’s next case—which Daniel Craig insists is his “most dangerous yet” in a short teaser video from Netflix—the cast is getting a bit too large to glean anything of note. Johnson is also holding his cards close to his chest. “I love everything about whodunnits, but one of the things I love most is how malleable the genre is,” he posted on Twitter/X right before the avalanche of casting updates. “There’s a whole tonal spectrum from Carr to Christie, and getting to explore that range is one of the most exciting things about making Benoit Blanc movies.”
Wake Up Dead Man is currently slated for a 2025 release.