Okay, But What About A ‘Knives Out’ Sequel Starring Daniel Craig And The Muppets?

The first Knives Out movie was a blast. Chris Evans in the most comfortable sweaters you’ve ever seen, Ana de Armas running around in a compact car trying to clear her name, Daniel Craig doing a Southern accent so thick you could float a brick on it, the whole thing. Go watch it again tonight, or next week, or anytime you want, really. It’s one of those movies that holds up to multiple rewatches, less because it reveals new secrets each time than because, I mean, again, it’s really just a blast.

The second one is shaping up to be a lot of fun, too. The action moves from the foggy Northeast to the Greek islands, with Daniel Craig lugging that accent of his — too heavy to be a carry-on, must be checked at the counter — across the Atlantic to dive into another mystery. The cast is loaded again, as one would expect: we’ve got Edward Norton as a billionaire named Miles Bron and Dave Bautista as a YouTube star named Duke Cody and Kate Hudson as a fashionista named Birdie Jay and Kathryn Hahn as a Connecticut governor named Claire Debella. This is great. It’s all great. I like that everyone appears to be having a good time with it. This is how movie franchises should work. You would have to be a maniac to suggest potential improvements to any of it.

But…

With that said…

I do have a thought.

What if the third movie in this franchise stars Daniel Craig and the Muppets?

It’s important to note that I am serious here. This isn’t me being a goofus online for the sake of starting an argument. I mean it. What if there is a murder at… oh, let’s say some luxurious ski chalet in Colorado or the French Alps and Daniel Craig shows up to get to the bottom of it and he gets there and the primary suspects and witnesses are the Muppets? Think about it for a while. Think about Kermit gulping when he realizes he’s been framed. Think about Miss Piggy doing her whole thing and maybe trying to seduce Benoit Blanc a little. Think, specifically, about Daniel Craig saying this exact line of dialogue to, like, Gonzo and Rizzo and Fozzie Bear.

It’s not unreasonable, honestly. It would work for a million reasons, some of them having to do with Daniel Craig kind of playing a cartoon character already with his theatrical sleuthing, some of them having to do with the Swedish Chef in the kitchen of the ski chalet whipping up five-star meals, and some of them having to do with precedent for this kind of thing already existing. Way back in 1981, over 40 years ago, the Muppets starred in — this is a thrilling collection of words I’m about to type — a musical heist mystery comedy called The Great Muppet Caper, in which they themselves investigated the theft of a priceless jewel known as “the Baseball Diamond.”

It was, and still is, a perfect film. It’s on Disney Plus right now if you need evidence or a reminder. It was chaotic and silly and featured cameos from a slew of stars of the time and it starred Charles Grodin as a notorious playboy and jewel thief named Nicky Holiday. You have never in your entire life seen a person have as much fun as Charles Grodin had hamming it up with the Muppets. Look at this guy.

This is exactly what I am talking about. Let Daniel Craig do this. Let Daniel Craig ham it up with the Muppets, but in the opposite way as Grodin, with him as the investigator and the Muppets as the suspects. Everything else remains the same. The Agatha Christie vibes remain in place, the tone and style are unchanged, we keep the whole formula from the first movie. We just add in Muppets. And maybe a song or two. This all worked again in 1992 in A Muppet Christmas Carol, with Michael Caine as the human playing it reasonably straight against a series of opinionated fuzzy puppets. I’m starting to get angry that we haven’t already made this movie.

There can be other humans, too. There should be. One of the humans has to be the murderer because I do not especially want to live in a world where one of the Muppets killed a person in cold blood. And the victim should be a human, too, for similar reasons, unless we want to kill off, like… no. Never mind. I almost suggested a scenario where Statler and Waldorf get killed and we see a long compilation of them mocking people as a potential motive, but we need them around to chime in on the investigation. We definitely have to kill off a human. Let’s go with “an Olympic snowboarder and heir to a shipping fortune played by Danny McBride.” That could be fun. We could have lots of flashbacks to get him into the action, too. This is coming together nicely.

We can have a few other humans, too, if we want. Jason Momoa would be incredible in a Muppet movie. I would like to see Rihanna in a scene with Gonzo at some point, in this movie or any other one, in part because I feel like they would have fun energy and in part because the idea of Rihanna making sexual advances at an increasingly shy and uncomfortable blue monster is deeply funny to me. Danny Trejo could work, too, which I thought and believed with all of my heart before I did some research and stumbled across this wonderful little piece of business.

So let’s go ahead and call this one confirmed. I don’t know if any of those three is the murderer, though. Maybe the murderer is Walton Goggins. Walton Goggins would be an incredible ski chalet murderer in a Muppets / Knives Out crossover movie. He already has history with Danny McBride from working together on Vice Principals and The Righteous Gemstones. And Edi Patterson, who also stars in The Righteous Gemstones, was in the first Knives Out movie. The pieces are all locking into place. And this is before we even get Animal on a set of skis and send him careening down a mountain. We have barely scratched the surface and we are already hitting gold.

In summation, I think the Muppets should appear in the third — I will settle for the fourth, if necessary — Knives Out movie for three primary reasons:

• It would be fun
• I think Daniel Craig would enjoy acting with the Muppets
• I would like it a lot

Thank you. Please begin working on this as soon as possible.