Jeremy Renner joins ‘Knives Out 3’ in first film since near-fatal accident

Jeremy Renner has found his first movie role since his nearly fatal snowplow accident. Renner is the latest star to join Rian Johnson’s new “Knives Out” film, “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery,” a Netflix representative confirmed Thursday to The Times.

The Hawkeye actor joins an already star-studded cast featuring Mila Kunis, Kerry Washington, Glenn Close and the returning Daniel Craig. “Challengers” lead Josh O’Connor, “Priscilla” star Cailee Spaeny and “Fleabag” actor Andrew Scott also appear in the whodunit murder mystery. Johnson returns as writer and director.

“Wake Up Dead Man” is the final movie in Netflix’s $450-million, two-movie purchase. “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” (2022) is the streaming giant’s ninth most watched English-language movie of all time with more than 136 million views. The first film was distributed by Lionsgate and made about $313 million at the global box office.

Renner was run over by a 7-ton snowplow on New Year’s Day 2023. He was thrown off the machine while clearing his driveway. When Renner attempted to stop the snowplow as it moved downhill toward his nephew, he was caught in the machine’s path, ultimately leaving him in critical condition. The accident left him with 38 broken bones and a collapsed lung, along with significant chest trauma.

“I relive it every night,” Renner told The Times in May. “It’s in my visions. It’s in my dreams and my waking thoughts.”

Doctors originally said it would take him years to walk, Renner told The Times. Due to his self-proclaimed stubbornness, he was walking with a cane in three months.

He told The Times that recovery is a “one-way street,” saying, “It’s not even [like] a piece of Ikea furniture — there are no directions. You go one direction: You get better. How easy is that? Just remember what you did yesterday, or couldn’t do, and then try to do it today.”

Renner returned to acting in January, shooting Season 3 of the Paramount+ show “Mayor of Kingstown,” which premieres on Sunday.

“To try to create some truth and then get the audience to believe it, while I’m just trying to learn to walk again, to put one foot in front of the other and not get up in agony. I’m doing all these things to find my footing on the planet again,” Renner said.

Season 2 of “Mayor of Kingstown” premiered just two weeks after Renner’s accident. The show, created by Taylor Sheridan and Hugh Dillon, is set in a prison town in which Renner plays the titular mayor. It explores themes of racism and corruption within the American for-profit prison industry.