'Knives Out 2' Will Reunite Dave Bautista With His 'Spectre' Co-Star Daniel Craig

Dave Bautista is heading to Greece for a murder mystery.

The Guardians of the Galaxy and Army of the Dead actor is the second major actor to sign on to Knives Out 2, writer/director Rian Johnson's follow-up to his 2019 hit. This will mark a reunion between Bautista and Knives Out 2 star Daniel Craig, since the two previously worked together on the 2015 James Bond film Spectre, in which Craig played the British super spy and Bautista played a hulking silent brute named Hinx.

Deadline brought us this Dave Bautista Knives Out 2 casting news, but unfortunately there is no word about what type of character he'll be playing. While the instant expectation in the fan community might be that he could be playing a villain because of his size and resume, Bautista has shown considerable dramatic range when he's been given the opportunity, notably as a bespectacled farmer in Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049, so I wouldn't put it past Rian Johnson to cast him against type here.

Johnson and his producer Ram Bergman recently signed a huge deal to make Knives Out 2 and Knives Out 3 at Netflix, which will have Daniel Craig leading each installment as Southern-fried detective Benoit Blanc. Johnson, Bergman, and Craig stand to make $100 million each from the deal, which shifted the rights to the franchise from Lionsgate theatrical to the streaming service.

Bautista is involved with several high-profile movies coming up. He leads the ensemble of Zack Snyder's zombie heist film Army of the Dead (also for Netflix), he reunites with Villeneuve for his mega-anticipated adaptation of Frank Herbert's sci-fi novel Dune, and he reprises his role as Drax the Destroyer in Marvel Studios' upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy holiday special, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

Knives Out 2 is set to begin production in Greece sometime this summer.