Knives Out Director Rian Johnson Reveals Apple Doesn’t Allow Villains to Use iPhones in Movies

Throughout the history of cinema, audiences have seen villainous characters take part in all manner of despicable behavior, but Knives Out writer/director Rian Johnson claims you’ll never see a villain using an iPhone. While some audiences might assume the brand of a character’s phone is an arbitrary detail, Johnson pointed out that Apple has an agreement in place that, if one of their products is to appear in a film, it can’t be seen being used by a villainous character. Now that this interesting detail has been revealed, it’s unclear if Apple will maintain this policy, which could have ramifications on Johnson’s upcoming Knives Out sequel.

“Apple, they let you use iPhones in movies but, and this is very pivotal if you’re ever watching a mystery movie, bad guys cannot have iPhones on camera,” Johnson shared in a scene dissection for Vanity Fair. “Every single filmmaker who has a bad guy in their movie that’s supposed to be a secret wants to murder me right now.”

Casual audiences might not pick up on such a detail, but in the case of Knives Out and its upcoming sequel, viewers likely pay much closer attention to various details, with this reveal potentially making viewers analyze future movies through an all-new lens.

Johnson previously revealed that, with the upcoming sequel, we’ll get an all-new investigation featuring Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc as opposed to seeing the specific narrative of Knives Out explored even further.

“This’ll be another Poirot novel. This’ll be just like what Agatha Christie did,” Johnson previously told Vulture. “It’s disconnected from Knives Out. It’s just another case.”

While both Johnson and Craig are excited about developing a sequel, the filmmaker previously shared that the priority was finding a story worth telling.

“There’s a lot that has to happen: First and foremost, I have to write a script that’s worth a damn, so we’ll see,” Johnson admitted to EW. “I don’t want to jump the gun, but it’s something I would love to do. First of all, because I had so much fun working with Daniel, and second, just because of the idea of doing the same thing that Agatha Christie did with Poirot and Miss Marple — just doing a whole different deal with Benoit Blanc as the detective. The possibilities of that seem endless in a way that’s really exciting.”

Stay tuned for details on the Knives Out sequel.

Had you ever noticed this detail before? Let us know in the comments below!