‘Glass Onion’s Miles Bron Not Based On Elon Musk, Says Rian Johnson; Any Resemblance “A Horrible, Horrible Accident”

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Filmmaker Rian Johnson has addressed similarities between his Glass Onion character Miles Bron and Elon Musk, stating that any resemblance between the imaginary tech billionaire and his real-life counterpart is purely unintentional.

Johnson acknowledged in a recent interview with Wired that his film does have a “very bizarre” real-life resonance when it comes to Bron, before going on to joke that he hopes there isn’t “some secret marketing department at Netflix” that’s funded Musk’s Twitter takeover.

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“There’s a lot of general stuff about that sort of species of tech billionaire that went directly into [Glass Onion]. But obviously, it has almost a weird relevance in exactly the current moment,” reflected Johnson. “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?”

Johnson reiterated during the Wired interview that that he wrote Glass Onion in 2020, long before Musk came on the scene at Twitter. Edward Norton’s character Miles, he clarified, was more so intended to represent one very familiar archetype among many in our modern-day world, than to stand in for anyone in particular. “The intent was to accurately reflect what it’s been like to have our heads in the middle of the cultural sphere for the past six years,” he said. “It’s a pretty nightmarish kind of carnival, Fellini-esque inflated reality right now.”

The second in a line of whodunits from Johnson on the heels of 2019’s Oscar-nominated box-office smash Knives Out, Glass Onion picks up with the famed Southern detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) as he travels to Greece to play a murder mystery game with Bron and a small group of the mogul’s wealthy and influential friends. The film bowed on Netflix on December 23rd after opening in 600 theaters the month prior.

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