While the box office has mostly been going bonkers for Frozen II in the last couple of weeks, Rian Johnson's whodunit Knives Out was able to hold its own last weekend and the film has been getting strong support from both fans and critics. Recently, that support has come in a very specific form, sweaters.
It all started a couple days ago when video essayist Patrick Willems started the #KnivesOutChallenge. This challenge wasn't anything complicated or even silly as so many internet "challenges" are. This one was something anybody could do. Simply post a picture of yourself wearing a sweater.
It worked. The hashtag picked up steam and a lot of people started posting pictures of themselves in sweaters. Most of them resemble the white sweater we see Chris Evans wearing in Knives Out, but really any sweater works. It's pretty hilarious to scroll through Twitter and just see all the people getting in on the fun.
Internet challenges based on movies are nothing new, and they can be a lot of fun, but frequently they get a little ridiculous. The Get Out challenge had people posting video of themselves running directly at a camera while looking stern. The Bird Box challenge had people walking around, and sometimes driving, blindfolded. That worked out about as well as you might expect.
However, the Knives Out challenge reached a new plateau when Knives Out director Rian Johnson picked up the challenge, posting an image from behind-the-scenes of Star Wars: The Last Jedi where he was directing Carrie Fisher while wearing a sweater.
And yet, things did not end there. Yesterday, the official Twitter account for Knives Out actually changed its name to "Chris Evans Sweater Stan Account." Things might be getting slightly out of control here.
For those of us that know Chris Evans as Captain America, he perhaps could not have found a better role to play against that type that the smarmy entitled asshole Ransom in Knives Out. Everybody in the film's all-star cast is excellent, but Evans is especially great and looks to be having more fun than anybody else in the room. And yes, the sweater game is excellent.
Knives Out made nearly $30 million during its opening weekend, which was on the high end of expectations going into the Thanksgiving holiday. It's already grossed $77 million worldwide which, with a reported budget of $40 million, means the movie is well on its way to being a financial success.
Whatever the reason, it's great to see such public support for such a great movie, that might otherwise go unappreciated for not being a massive franchise film. Which, is not to say that we might not see Rian Johnson and Daniel Craig re-team for another mystery down the road, and see Knives Out become its own franchise.
