Los Angeles, Feb 7 (IANS): Director Rian Johnson's critically acclaimed whodunit murder mystery "Knives Out" will get a sequel.

During Lionsgate's third-quarter earnings call, CEO Jon Feltheimer said that a sequel to "Knives Out" is officially a go, hinting a production start for a follow-up to the money-making film, reports deadline.com.

The news comes as the film starring Daniel Craig, which earned Johnson his first Oscar nomination for his Original Screenplay, is nearing the $300 million mark at the worldwide box office. It was one of the three films to come out during Lionsgate's fiscal Q3 along with "Midway" and "Bombshell". As a result, film revenue rose 30 per cent in the quarter, the company said.

Johnson assembled a star cast led by Chris Evans, Craig, Jamie Lee Curtis and Ana de Armas for the whodunnit murder mystery. The Lionsgate project released in India on November 29 last year.

Johnson has been openly hinting he was keen to do a sequel to "Knives Out", his contemporary spin on an Agatha Christie-esque murder mystery.

In an interview to IANS, Johnson said: "I don't even think of it as a sequel, but as another mystery, in the same way Agatha Christie said. So, the idea of having a whole new cast of characters, a whole new setting and a new mystery (is fun) and the form is so malleable.

"It will be a fun challenge to create a new mystery after this one that can draw people in a totally different and unexpected way. That's a really fun challenge. We will see about the sequel. I don't want to get ahead of myself. We'll see how this goes."