Ever since Rian Johnson’s acclaimed “Knives Out” sequel “Glass Onion” debuted on Netflix shortly before Christmas, social media users have spent a lot of time debating the Elon Musk of it all. Google “Glass Onion” and “Elon Musk” and you’ll get dozens of articles about how the “Knives Out” sequel is a “veiled dig” at the Twitter owner. You’ll also be directed to a tirade from conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro, who slammed the film’s Musk takedown and wrote that “Rian Johnson’s politics is as lazy as his writing.”
For Johnson, however, it’s a “horrible accident” that “Glass Onion” debuted amidst Musk’s disastrous Twitter takeover. The director wrote “Glass Onion” during the height of the COVID pandemic, long before Musk was in the news every single day for months because of his controversial Twitter leadership. Sure, Johnson always intended to poke fun at the tech space with the character of Miles Bron, but the film was never devoted to slamming Musk in particular.
“It’s so weird. It’s very bizarre,” Johnson told Wired about his movie opening alongside Musk’s Twitter drama. “I hope there isn’t some secret marketing department at Netflix that’s funding this Twitter takeover.”
Johnson added, “There’s a lot of general stuff about that sort of species of tech billionaire that went directly into [the movie]. But obviously, it has almost a weird relevance in exactly the current moment. A friend of mine said, ‘Man, that feels like it was written this afternoon.’ And that’s just sort of a horrible, horrible accident, you know?”
Musk supporters on social media have slammed Johnson and “Glass Onion” since they believe the film is one big takedown of Musk. The charge was led by Shapiro, whose Twitter thread about the movie went viral.
“[Johnson’s] take on the universe is that Elon Musk is a bad and stupid man, and that anyone who likes him – in media, politics, or tech – is being paid off by him,” Shapiro wrote. “This is an incredibly stupid theory, since Musk is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in human history (how many rockets has Johnson launched lately?), and it’s a foolish conspiracy theory to boot.”
While Shapiro earned support from Musk fans, he was also widely mocked for misinterpreting the movie. Either way, the timing of “Glass Onion’s” release has turned it into a political-driven conversation starter that Johnson could have never predicted.
“Glass Onion” is now streaming on Netflix.