Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion movie is named after a Beatles song, but does it mean more than that? The director reveals how and why he gave the film such a title, as many viewers have also been clueless and wondering if there is an underlying meaning to it.
Glass Onion is the sequel to the 2019 Knives Out movie, a murder mystery film featuring the world-famous detective Benoit Blanc heading to Greece. He finds himself in a lavish private estate unraveling the secrets surrounding a billionaire and his crew of friends.
Rian Johnson Shares The Reason Behind Glass Onion Movie Title
Johnson’s interview with Deadline reveals that the director had a challenging time coming up with a name for the movie. He admitted having written the script without any specific title in mind. It was terrifying, as he mentioned, because the original film took him 10 years to make.
“I’d gotten to a point where I had the idea of a central metaphor that Blanc could latch onto and beat like a dead horse. Something that was made of glass. Something that was layered, but the center was in plain sight, and so on. And I thought, OK, well the billionaire is going to have an island, and maybe he has some structure on it that’s made of glass, so… is it a glass castle? Is it a glass palace? I literally opened the music app on my phone and just searched the word ‘glass,’ and ‘Glass Onion’ popped up.”
That was an epiphany for him, and he knew right away that he was going to incorporate it into the movie. The thing that caught him off-guard is the fact that no one knew about the Glass Onion reference, or that it was a Beatles song.
“But I was always surprised, when I was showing the script around, how many people didn’t know it was a Beatles song. I thought everybody knew ‘Glass Onion,’ but I guess they don’t.”
For those who are not familiar with the song, Glass Onion was written by John Lennon as part of their eponymous 1968 double album, which was also called the White Album. The composer’s intention for choosing such a title was to create confusion for the listeners. He knew that people would devote their time to analyzing and dissecting the lyrics, so he had fun writing them.
Glass Onion the movie, was released in theaters on Wednesday for a limited run, and it will debut on Netflix on December 23.
Source: CBR