'Wake Up Dead Man' Builds Its Mega Ensemble With Jeremy Renner And Mila Kunis
The third 'Knives Out' mystery brings the pair’s first major film roles in a while for both under very different circumstances
And then there were more. It’s been quite a week since Wake Up Dead Man was first announced to be the title of writer-director Rian Johnson’s third Knives Out mystery, and it’s only continued to grow its cast, now adding a comeback story to its press tour. Thursday brought another three new cast members to its ensemble as it revs toward production early next month: Jeremy Renner, Mila Kunis, and Daryl McCormack.
For Renner, this will be his first film role since his marvelous recovery from his New Year’s Day 2023 near-fatal and bone-crushing snowplow accident. It required numerous surgeries and hours of rehabilitation and physical therapy. In recent weeks and months he’s opened up about his journey, especially as he’s on a promotional tour for his first post-surgery work: returning as lead Mike McLusky on the third season of his Paramount+ drama Mayor of Kingstown, which premieres Sunday. Notably, Renner, who has starred in the Mission: Impossible franchise and as Clint Barton aka Hawkeye in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has already appeared in the Knives Out series as himself. Kind of. In the previous mystery, Glass Onion, he has his own branded hot sauce, and thus his face is on the label. Vulnerability to celebrity paradoxes was probably inevitable when casting big wide nets to construct large A-list ensembles for your murder mysteries and then wealth and celebrity notoriety defines a set of circumstances that leads to equal-level celebrity-branded and endorsed products being namedropped.
Kunis has spent much of the last 25 years as the voice of Meg Griffin on Family Guy, initially in the midst of playing her breakout role of Jackie Burkhart on That ‘70s Show for eight seasons. Her most major film role this decade was the 2022 Netflix thriller Luckiest Girl Alive, where she was also a producer after having starred in such films as Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Max Payne, Black Swan, Ted, Friends with Benefits, Oz the Great and Powerful, the Bad Moms movies and The Spy Who Dumped Me. Both of her latest two television roles playing actual characters and not just herself were tied to husband Ashton Kutcher, guest starring in an episode of Two and a Half Men toward the end of its run and reprising as Jackie for That ‘90s Show last year.
Friday afternoon was when the casting of McCormack, best known for starring in the comedic drama Good Luck to You, Leo Grande with Emma Thompson, was revealed. He’s also been seen in the Apple TV+ series Bad Sisters and the fifth season of Peaky Blinders. He will next be seen in Universal’s Twisters in July.
They join Josh O’Connor, Cailee Spaeny, Andrew Scott, Kerry Washington, and Glenn Close in a cast led by Daniel Craig’s detective Benoit Blanc. Plot details, as well as character details for anyone but Blanc, are unknown. Not only is Johnson writing and directing but producing though his T-Street banner along with producing partner Ram Bergman. A 2025 release, fulfilling the second of a two-sequel deal with Netflix worth $450 million, was announced with the title.
