Speaking to GQ, Rian Johnson revealed the process of creating Knives Out, which took a full decade. Johnson noted that he had pondered the idea for the project for years before being tapped to direct Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Working on such a massive franchise took another four years of Johnson’s life until he was finally able to return to the world of Benoit Blanc.
Despite calling his time in the Star Wars franchise the best experience of his life, he also admitted, “It’s been four years of my life doing this one movie.” After that, he was excited to move on to something new and decided chose Knives Out.
“It was this little crime thriller that I had been cooking in the back of my mind for about ten years,” Johnson said. Though it took a decade from concept to film, Johnson said the actual process of writing the screenplay for Knives Out took just half a year, a short time by his own standards.
“I figured it out for myself very quickly,” Johnson said. “It was about a six-month writing process. I think earlier [I] could become very valuable for scripts and spend years chewing on them.” In the end, Johnson felt liberating to surpass himself. “There was something very liberating about just being like, ‘Okay, I’m going to write this thing relatively quickly. ‘ Johnson said.
