Here's why a movie villain never uses an iPhone and it might serve as a big spoiler

If you are a big fan of murder mysteries and trying to figure out the bad guy among the suspects, you might or might not want this hint. The bad guys in a movie or a drama series would never carry an iPhone. So if a character has one, they are probably not the real one. There's a simple reason why villains don't carry the popular status symbol in any movie. "Knives Out" director Rian Johnson revealed it as he broke down scenes from the movie for Vanity Fair. 

“I don’t know if I should say this or not. Not because it’s lascivious or something, but because it’s gonna screw me on the next mystery movie that I write. But forget it, I’ll say it, it’s very interesting," Johnson told the outlet. “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. Every single filmmaker who has a bad guy in their movie that’s supposed to be a secret wants to murder me right now," the director continued. It is assumed that the policy is in place to maintain the image of the company and for people to associate the iPhone with positive things.

The detail also gives out a huge spoiler about Knives Out as per CNBC. A Reddit user u/Aduro95 even pointed out why the policy seemed strange to them. "The rule seems stupid to me. Lots of villains tend to have expensive, luxurious things. I would fully expect Hans Gruber from 'Die Hard' to have much more expensive stuff than John McClane." They added, "Gruber wears an extremely nice suit, and McClane spends most of the movie in a cheap-looking tank top. It's part of McClane's character that he is insecure that his wife's career is much more successful than his own."

"I bet some watch company paid a lot of money to get Alan Rickman to wear their watch, and that it turned out to be a sensible marketing decision because rich people would be very happy to own Hans Gruber's watch," the person expressed. The individual asked people if they would be more willing to use stuff used by a working-class hero over things used by a rich bad guy in a movie. People took to the comments section of the post to detail the reason behind the company's policy as well as to give their opinion on it.

u/kobrakaan noted, "It's well documented that Apple iPhones cannot be used on-screen with villains or bad guys or in any scene or depiction that may show the company in bad light or appear to be associated with crime or violence or bad stuff in general same goes with computers and you can also see this way back in 2002's long-running '24' series with the good guys using Macs and the bad guys using Windows machines." u/Zandrick pointed out, "Apple is not unusual in this. When was the last time you’ve seen the villain of a movie talk about their favorite chain restaurants or brand of beer?"

u/Jaedos shared, "Go look at the Walking Dead. You'll notice that cars where the brand is highly visible tend to be clean and in good running condition. Kia especially stated a rule that their cars must never be used for scenes where the vehicle is wrecked or won't start."