Rian Johnson: 'Apple bosses won't let bad guys use iPhones in films'

Rian Johnson has claimed Apple executives won't allow bad characters to be seen using iPhones in films.

The Star Wars: The Last Jedi director shared the filmmaking secret during a video interview with Vanity Fair in which he broke down a pivotal scene in his recent Agatha Christie-style whodunnit, Knives Out, which revolves around Daniel Craig's detective Benoit Blanc investigating who killed crime novelist Harlan Thrombey.

He shed light on making the scene in which all the members of the Thrombey family converge in the mansion for the first time following Harlan's death and revealed that you can tell who the villain of the piece is by looking at their mobile devices, as there is a reason why several characters were seen using an iPhone onscreen and one, in particular, was not.

"I don't know if I should say this or not," he said. "Not because it's lascivious or something, but because it's gonna screw me on the next mystery movie that I write. But forget it, I'll say it, it's very interesting. 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. Every single filmmaker who has a bad guy in their movie that's supposed to be a secret wants to murder me right now."

Knives Out, which also starred Ana de Armas, Chris Evans, and Jamie Lee Curtis, was a critical and commercial success following its release in November.

It was recently announced that Johnson, who was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at this year's Oscars, was working on a sequel that will follow Blanc as he investigates a new murder.