This Strange Knives Out Theory Has Been Right About Every Killer

Turns out, you don’t have to have the world-class deduction skills of Benoit Blanc to crack the Knives Out mysteries right off the bat — all it takes is a bit of pattern recognition. Now that the third movie in the detective saga, Wake Up Dead Man, has been released, fans have pointed out an unexpected connection between all of the villains and killers in each film. It’s been so accurate up to this point, that once the cast list for a potential Knives Out 4 is announced, you can make a safe bet about who the secret murderer will be.

Spoiler alert: This post will spoil the mysteries of Knives Out, Glass Onion, and Wake Up Dead Man.

The theory is pretty simple: If an actor who starred in a Marvel movie shows up, then they will be revealed to be a villain. It’s unclear if this is some personal vendetta director Rian Johnson has against Marvel, or just a very bizarre coincidence, but it’s true that in all three of the movies, it’s always a Marvel star (or two, or more) who is unmasked as the big bad in the end.

Don’t believe me? Let’s review the proof:

Knives Out

In 2019’s Knives Out, the revelation that Chris Evans’ Ransom Drysdale was framing the maid Marta for murder was a shock, since Evans was playing against his superheroic, good-guy type as Captain America in the Marvel movies.

Glass Onion

The 2022 sequel movie upped the featured Marvel stars, with both Edward Norton (who previously starred in The Incredible Hulk) and Dave Bautista (who stars in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies) as leads. In the end, both of their characters are revealed to be guilty. Norton’s Miles is unmasked as the main villain, and Bautista’s Duke was a minor bad guy who tried to blackmail Miles after learning of his crimes.

There’s a little glitch in the Marvel theory, though, as Kathryn Hahn also stars in Glass Onion. But the movie was filmed slightly before Hahn made her Marvel debut as Agatha Harkness, so she wasn’t really known as a Marvel star quite yet.

Wake Up Dead Man

Two examples of something is a coincidence, but a third proves a pattern. And Wake Up Dead Man fully doubled down on the Marvel theory. Not only is the movie’s clear antagonist played by Josh Brolin, who is also the most iconic villain in all the Marvel movies, but its final killer reveals exclusively implicate the actors who have had Marvel roles.

The mastermind is revealed to be Glenn Close’s Martha, who was aided in orchestrating Monsignor Wicks’ death with the medical knowledge of Jeremy Renner’s Dr. Nat. Renner has famously starred in multiple Marvel movies and shows as Hawkeye, and Close has appeared in Guardians of the Galaxy as Nova Prime.

Although he isn’t really a villain, Thomas Haden Church’s groundskeeper Samson is also implicated in the crimes, since he assisted his lover Martha in her scheme. Church has played the Marvel villain Sandman in Spider-Man 3 and Spider-Man: No Way Home.