It’s not even July, and fall festival season is already heating up.

The Toronto International Film Festival announced Wednesday that Rian Johnson’s anticipated Knives Out sequel, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, will make its world premiere at the festival in September. It follows in the same trajectory as its 2019 predecessor, which also launched in Toronto before going on to make over $300 million at the global box office and score an Oscar nomination for Johnson’s original screenplay.

A guide to Hollywood’s biggest races

The new film sees the reprisal of Daniel Craig’s Detective Benoit Blanc, as he travels to Greece and encounters another starry group of suspects while investigating a new mystery. Those along for the ride include Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick, and Madelyn Cline. Netflix is distributing Glass Onion, taking the reins from Lionsgate (which gave Knives Out a traditional theatrical rollout), with an expected release date in late 2022.

Glass Onion is a significant get for TIFF, a typically major stop on the awards circuit whose momentum has been dulled somewhat by the COVID-19 pandemic and poorly received virtual pivots. Early murmurs are that this year’s festival will mark a comeback of sorts, in terms of the quality of films and talent set to land there as part of the rollout of this season’s major contenders. 

Last year, TIFF opened with the critically derided musical Dear Evan Hansen, but the festival did house the world premiere of The Eyes of Tammy Faye, for which Jessica Chastain went on to win the best-actress Oscar. The 2021 People’s Choice Award, considered a strong Academy bellwether, went to Belfast, an eventual Oscar winner for best original screenplay (Kenneth Branagh); The Power of the Dog was the second-runner-up, and one of only a few 2021 Netflix titles to play in Toronto. (Others include the panned Melissa McCarthy vehicle The Starling and the Antoine Fuqua remake of The Guilty, starring Jake Gyllenhaal.)

TIFF’s 2022 edition runs from September 8 to 18, the week after the Telluride and Venice Film Festivals, as per usual. Expect more major announcements in the coming weeks—and months, because we’ve still got a long way to go.