Why director Rian Johnson is 'pissed off' about the title of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Writer-director Rian Johnson successfully fought to get a wide theatrical release for his Netflix film Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, albeit just for one week, but there is another battle related to the movie that he lost. Turns out, Johnson is none too keen on the film's subtitle and would rather his Daniel Craig-starring mystery-thriller be called simply Glass Onion.

"I've tried hard to make them self-contained," says Johnson in an interview with The Atlantic, referring to Glass Onion and its predecessor, 2019's Knives Out. "Honestly, I'm pissed off that we have A Knives Out Mystery in the title. You know? I want it to just be called Glass Onion. I get it, and I want everyone who liked the first movie to know this is next in the series, but also, the whole appeal to me is it's a new novel off the shelf every time. But there's a gravity of a thousand suns toward serialized storytelling."

In the interview, Johnson also discusses his Star Wars film, 2017's The Last Jedi, and the difficulty of ending a movie that is part of a greater saga.

"Look, in terms of the Star Wars movie I did, I tried to give it a hell of an ending," he says. "I love endings so much that even doing the middle chapter of the trilogy, I tried to give it an ending. A good ending that recontextualizes everything that came before it and makes it a beautiful object unto itself — that's what makes a movie a movie. It feels like there's less and less of that. This whole poisonous idea of creating [intellectual property] has completely seeped into the bedrock of storytelling. Everyone is just thinking, How do we keep milking it? I love an ending where you burn the Viking boat into the sea."

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (or just Glass Onion, if you prefer) is now available to watch on Netflix.

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Related content:

• The cast of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery spills secrets in EW's Around the Table
• Rian Johnson wants to expand the Knives Out world to include a board game and a stage play
• Through the looking glass: Inside Knives Out sequel Glass Onion