Streaming is shaking things up for a major murder mystery franchise.

After the twist-filled genre first came to life with noir-centric thriller stories in the 1940s, it properly took off in the ’60s with numerous adaptations of whodunnit novels, including the works of Agatha Christie and her various Hercule Poirot stories. This even led to the genre seeing a resurgence on the small screen with everything from the Angela Lansbury-led Murder, She Wrote, which has a movie reboot on the way with Jamie Lee Curtis, to Peter Falk’s Columbo.

After a gradual decline in popularity, the past decade has seen another resurgence in the murder mystery genre, primarily in the world of films, thanks in part to Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot adaptation Murder on the Orient Express, which spawned a multi-film franchise. Others to follow in Branagh’s footsteps to success have included Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston’s Murder Mystery franchise at Netflix, Hugh Jackman’s The Sheep Detectives and numerous Sherlock Holmes adaptations.

One of the most notable examples to come from this resurgence was that of Rian Johnson’s Knives Out, which is about to leave streaming. Inspired by Christie’s novels, the 2019 film was led by Daniel Craig as eccentric private detective Benoit Blanc as he was brought in to investigate the mysterious death of a bestselling mystery novelist, putting him square in the middle of a dysfunctional family.

Written, directed and produced by Johnson, Knives Out was a runaway hit upon its release, grossing nearly $313 million worldwide and securing rave reviews from critics, including three Golden Globe nominations and an Oscar nomination. Its success spawned a franchise that has thus far included two sequels centered on Blanc, both of which were made at Netflix after the streamer acquired the rights from Johnson and creative partner Ram Bergman.

Now, some seven years after the film kicked off a new era of murder mysteries, Knives Out is about to leave streaming entirely. The movie has been available to stream on the NBCUniversal-owned Peacock for some time, and is going to officially leave the platform on August 1. At the time of writing, it has not been set to move to a new streaming home, leaving its online availability only on digital rental and purchasing platforms.

With its impending Peacock exit, Knives Out has officially reached the end of an era for the murder mystery franchise as it will now leave Netflix as the only streaming home for them. Given both the 2022 and 2025 sequels, Glass Onion and Wake Up Dead Man, were produced by Netflix, it’s made sense that they’ve only been housed on said platform on top of their limited theatrical releases.

More notably, the first Knies Out movie remains the only one in the franchise to have received a physical release, with Johnson having indicated around Glass Onion‘s debut that there were talks with the streamer to bring the first sequel to shelves, though nothing ever came to fruition. As such, fans of the franchise wanting to revisit the films will now not only be without the movie that started it all, but also make Netflix the only current way to watch any of them.

The question now becomes whether Netflix will look to acquire the streaming rights to Knives Out to round out their collection and potentially give the second and third films a viewership boost to build confidence in moving forward with a fourth movie. Renewed viewership success could also see the streamer finally move forward with a physical release for Glass Onion and Wake Up Dead Man, much in the way they’ve teamed with Criterion and other publishers for some of their biggest hits.

Release Date

November 27, 2019

Runtime

131 minutes

Producers

Ram Bergman