A murderer is necessary for a successful murder mystery. Suppose Benoit Blanc’s precise phrasing fits the description, a hole to fill a doughnut. Director Rian Johnson identified his newest murderer as a tech tycoon with a massive ego for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, the follow-up to his tremendously successful Knives Out. As a result, the size and gloss of the entire movie had to be increased.
After finally getting rid of Andi Brand (Janelle Monáe), Miles Bron (Edward Norton), the creator of “Klear,” a hydrogen-based alternative fuel, invites his group of pals to his private island. However, he is shocked when Andi shows up. He believes this because Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), who seems to help in the investigation, is actually her twin sister Helen, posing as Andi.
Johnson added that he wanted Miles to be a giant idiot who believed his own hype and could get away with it before being exposed for his own stupidity. After all, Miles invited pals to a murder mystery weekend just a week after committing a murder.
Johnson elaborated on this in an interview with Empire for their Spoiler Special podcast on the film, where he acknowledged that he had already decided Miles would be the key piece of the jigsaw.
It was very, very early. It was always the idea behind it, that’s where I came up with the notion of the glass onion. I wanted a big, dumb, obvious lie and it being made possible by the complicity of people who had a vested interest in that lie – and how big and obvious can you make it, under the guise of someone trying to play 3D chess with you? That more than anything is what the movie is about, so we need a character like Miles. The movie is an angry movie, there’s a lot of howling at the stupidity of what we’ve gone through in recent years with public figures, so we needed a larger-than-life central figure. If anything, I feel like Miles is underplayed compared to real life.
Right now, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is available on Netflix. Below is a video of our chat with Johnson.
