Star Wars Director Rian Johnson Explains Why He Made Knives Out After The Last Jedi

Cinephiles might have expected director Rian Johnson to try out another science fiction movie after Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Looper, however, the filmmaker decided to try his hand at Knives Out, an exceptionally made whodunit movie.

The black comedy-mystery movie seemed like a far jump from The Last Jedi, and some fans couldn't help but wonder whether Johnson decided on making a whodunit movie because there'd be less pressure involved than working on a Star Wars film.

However, pressure had nothing to do with Johnson's decision to work on Knives Out after Episode VIII. Speaking in an interview with Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Johnson opens up about working on the murder mystery movie. According to the director, there was only one thing that pushed him to work on Knives Out right after The Last Jedi – the idea that it would be a fun movie to make coming out of Lucasfilm's Star Wars sequel trilogy.

"It just seemed like wow, it'd be fun to make a whodunnit next and it was fun coming out of Star Wars which was a great experience but took four years to make one movie," Johnson explained, "It was really fun to jump into something that I knew we could just do really quick and put out there into the world."

While it seems like Johnson was eager to take the edge off after all of the fan-boy negativity that surrounded The Last Jedi, the filmmaker says that he still enjoyed every aspect of working on a Star Wars film.

"The appeal of Knives Out coming off of Star Wars wasn't really that it was less pressure, that it was less visible or anything like that," Johnson said. "All that stuff with Star Wars, I enjoyed that aspect of it. It was fun because it's Star Wars. That goes hand in hand with what makes it great."

Despite the apparent toxicity of the fans that would harass Johnson because of the subversive decisions made in The Last Jedi, the film went on to become a critical and commercial success for Lucasfilm. Not long after, Johnson went on to work on Knives Out, a film that would receive three nominations at the 77^th Golden Globe Awards and one nomination at the 92^nd Academy Awards this year.

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