Rian Johnson, the filmmaker best known for his work on Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Knives Out, recently discussed his work and some aspects of the filmmaking process with Vanity Fair. During the approximately 20-minute interview, Johnson revealed an interesting tidbit about Apple product placement: the company reportedly doesn’t allow the iPhone to be used on-screen by villains.
As Johnson points out in the video, this fact can function as a spoiler — if you see a character in a movie who may be the villain but they are visibly using an iPhone, then it is safe to assume they are not, in fact, the villain. That’s due to the product placement rules Apple has in place for filmmakers, which allows iPhones to be used, but only if they’re associated with ‘good’ characters.
It’s unclear whether the public awareness of this fact may influence future movies. Some filmmakers may choose to have their characters exclusively use Android phones to avoid ruining the surprise. If that happens, Apple may feel compelled to loosen this restriction in order to return its handset to the big screen. ‘Every single filmmaker who has a bad guy in their movie that’s supposed to be a secret wants to murder me right now,’ Johnson quipped.
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