Anyone who’s spent a few minutes browsing Zillow Gone Wild (which aided in promo for the film) and saw Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery knows that the so-extravagant-it’s-sickening house is likely real and not a series of built-from-scratch sets. While not every bit of the wealthy compound in the movie is actually on the property, there are plenty of places you can visit between three countries, rather than one mystery island called “Pisceshite” in the Mediterranean.
Pisceshite (or “piece of shit”) was made up for the film and emphasized by the Greek guide (Nikos), who was very annoyed by the movie’s main group of rich “shitheads.” Nikos is played by N.J. Gentry and is who writer/director Rian Johnson describes as “a producer at our company.” While it’s easy to point out as rude ethnic/accent humor, I think that the locals probably just say that to rich people who show up to the area—like Miles Bron (Edward Norton) and his crew. Nikos ferries the wealthy socialites (and our favorite detective with an adorably bad southern drawl, played by Daniel Craig) to Pisceshite, a.k.a. where the glass onion sits.
Where is the Glass Onion island location?
Most of the film’s island was shot in Villa 20 at the Amanzoe Gallery in Porto Heli, Greece. Porto Heli is a part of mainland Greece (which is over 80% mainland) and not an island, as suggested in the movie. Production designer Rick Heinrichs told CondĂ© Nast Traveler that they found the location but were unsure about the viability of shooting there. After looking around more, they found that nothing matched the look they wanted as closely, and decided to make it look like an island for the story in post-production.
The regular suites at Amazone run about $1,800 a night, but the Villa is a call-in price because it’s meant for bigger groups with deeper pockets, like the story’s characters. It is big enough to accommodate not just the shoot but a living space for some of the cast that brought their families. The giant glass onion, as we saw it sitting at the top of the hill, was mostly special effects.
According to TimeOut, some parts of the movie were actually filmed on Greek islands (just not the house). For example, some scenes were shot on a 10-minute ferry from Porto Heli in Spetses. In Spetses’s port of Dapia, the cast and crew shot the scene where the characters waited for the arrival of a yacht and met Nikos and Benoir Blanc. I know I keep bringing up Nikos, but if you haven’t watched it, know that he isn’t that important. I just like the name.
Not quite all in Greece
Some parts of the house were built over 500 miles away in Belgrade, Serbia. The futuristic room inside the glass onion and the main hall (with the dining room and couch), where a majority of the action takes place, came from sets built in Belgrade. Heinrichs said that four weeks of the film were shot in Greece, while seven weeks were shot in Belgrade. Many of these indoor scenes were distinctly Bron’s style, which was “I have money, but no artistic vision,” so luckily, we’re not missing out with these not being real places. It worked for the story and character building, though.
What wasn’t filmed in Europe was shot in a few places in the Northeast U.S. in places like New York. Filming Locations by AltasofWonders.com (who also found the price tag for many of these locations) did some Benoit-level sleuthing and discovered many scenes were shot around the state, like Connecticut Governor Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn)’s quarantine mansion. Another example is Benoit Blanc’s Park Avenue penthouse, where we see him hanging out with some super famous people in a Zoom call and, of course, when he receives the visitor that shall not be named.
Glass Onion, with its sweeping coastal colors and bright clothing, is such a visual shift from Knives Out‘s New England fall colors dripping with old money. I can’t wait to see where the unnamed third film takes us next!
(featured image: Netflix)
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