Craig’s detective returns as new ‘Knives Out’ lights up Toronto fest

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Daniel Craig led an A-list cast to Toronto with his latest “Knives Out” whodunit movie, one of several star-studded world premieres on a packed Saturday night at North America’s biggest movie festival.

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The darkest of the now-trilogy of Oscar-nominated murder mysteries, “Wake Up Dead Man” is set at a small-town church in upstate New York, where a charismatic firebrand priest holds sway over his devoted congregation.

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When a seemingly impossible death occurs, a local police chief sends for Craig’s Benoit Blanc — the gentleman detective with a deep Southern drawl who has anchored every film. Glenn Close, Mila Kunis and Josh Brolin are among the cast.

“Well, when they’re as fun as this, then it’s really easy” to keep coming back, Craig told reporters on the red carpet.

“It’s a departure from the other two, but it’s still within the realms of a murder mystery and the rules of the game.”

After the success of the first “Knives Out” film — loosely inspired by Agatha Christie’s novels — Netflix paid a reported $400 million for two sequels.

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The second film, “Glass Onion,” became the first Netflix film to play in major US theater chains.

The latest will also hit theaters first, in November, before streaming in December.

Director Rian Johnson said the new film’s creepy Gothic tone was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s writings, though the movie is set in the present day and inflected with the franchise’s usual satirical humor.

The movie takes swings at conspiracy theorists and divisive politicians profiting off hate.

Not-so-veiled digs at Trumpism include Josh O’Connor’s priest character being mocked as a PINO, or a “Priest in Name Only” — riffing off the “Republican in Name Only” slur beloved by the US president and his supporters.

Faith also comes under the magnifying glass of Craig’s dapper detective.

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Johnson, who grew up religious, said he has “a lot of complicated feelings” about faith.

“It’s something I wanted to work into it and write about.”

– ‘Let Elvis sing’ –

Also on Saturday, Baz Luhrmann unveiled an Elvis Presley concert film that has been seven years in the making.

Quasi-documentary “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert,” uses long-lost footage unearthed by the director while researching his 2022 Oscar-nominated drama “Elvis,” starring Austin Butler.

Luhrmann and researchers scoured salt mines in Kansas where Warner Bros stored almost 60 hours of film negative in its underground vaults for decades.

The film makes the case that Presley was still at the peak of his performing powers in the 1970s, and is narrated by the singer himself, using archive clips.

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“We made the decision that we should let Elvis sing and tell his story himself. That was really the choice,” said Luhrmann.

Elsewhere, Channing Tatum launched “Roofman.” The crime dramedy is based on the true story of Jeffrey Manchester, who robbed McDonalds restaurants by breaking in through their roofs, and lived secretly in the walls of a Toys R Us store.

“I remember yelling at the actual script. I was, like, ‘Don’t do that. Just stop!’” said Tatum, of his character’s series of disastrous decisions.

French director Romain Gavras premiered his celebrity climate-change satire “Sacrifice,” starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Evans, as an eco-terrorist and a waning movie star, respectively.

Keanu Reeves appeared as an incompetent angel in Aziz Ansari’s body-swapping farce “Good Fortune,” while Brendan Fraser walked the red carpet for “Rental Family,” in which the Oscar-winner plays a lonely actor available for hire at funerals and weddings in Tokyo.

The Toronto International Film Festival runs until September 14.

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