Knives Out director reveals a character's phone could give away if they're the bad guy

Spoiler alert for Knives Out 2: the guy on the iPhone didn't do it.

Director Rian Johnson in a Knives Out scene breakdown for Vanity Fair this week revealed one of Apple's rules for the use of its products on screen. Supposedly, the company has a strict policy of not allowing filmmakers to show bad guys using an iPhone.

"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," Johnson said.

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Johnson, who in the video wrestled with whether to reveal this information, joked that every director with a secret villain in their movie now "wants to murder me," with this possibly including his future self as he gets to work on his Knives Out sequel.

While we'll have to take Johnson's word for this supposed bad guy iPhone moratorium, Apple, Mac Rumors notes, is "known for having strict rules about how devices are used, portrayed, and photographed," insisting that they're portrayed "in the best light." We can only presume from this that Kylo Ren and Rey were originally supposed to FaceTime rather than Force-connect in Johnson's Star Wars: The Last Jedi, but the pesky folks at Apple required a re-write. Brendan Morrow