You Can Vacation On Glass Onion's IRL Private Island — If You Have The Cash

The first Knives Out felt like it took place in a world all of its own, thanks in no small part to the fact that most of the activity happens at the family’s mansion, full of nooks, crannies, and creaky staircases. That movie was filmed almost entirely on location at an actual mansion south of Boston. The latest Knives Out installment, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery also sets up a mystery in an iconic location — this time one of the European variety — though scenes of Benoit Blanc’s apartment were filmed in Manhattan.

Aside from Daniel Craig’s detective Benoit Blanc, Knives Out 2 features an entirely new cast of characters in the form of a dysfunctional group of friends. There’s also a new mystery: a billionaire tech guy named Miles Bron (Edward Norton) brings all of his friends to his private island for an elite holiday in Greece, where they stay in his elaborate villa dubbed “the Glass Onion” thanks to its unique shape. When someone ends up dead — not fake-dead in his murder mystery game, actually dead — Blanc must crack the case. It’s a story about murder, of course — but there are also some jaw-dropping views of the Aegean Sea. So where was this thing filmed, and can you actually visit the Glass Onion filming locations? Here’s everything we know.

Knives Out 2 Was Filmed Overseas

Glass Onion takes Benoit overseas to Greece and Serbia. Writer-director Rian Johnson tweeted that filming had commenced in June 2021, saying, “Aaaaaaaand WE’RE OFF! Day one of filming on the next Benoit Blanc mystery. Thanks to all the lovely patient people here in Greece for letting us do all this murdering on their peaceful shores.”

Variety reported that the production was shooting on Spetses, an affluent island off of the nearby Porto Heli, which is known as the Greek Riviera — a perfect place for billionaires to murder each other if there ever was one. Many scenes were shot in Spetses, like the opening dock scene and other exteriors, while anything filmed at Miles’ mansion was shot at a resort in Porto Heli. So about that resort...

You Can Vacation At Miles’ Mansion

The production turned an actual private resort, the Amanzoe on Porto Heli, into Miles’ mansion. “We actually spotted the Aman villa early on as something that could really work, but we didn’t know whether we would ever get permission to shoot there,” Production Designer Rick Heinrichs told Conde Nast Traveler. “The people who own such a thing don’t really need a motion picture company to come in there. Also, it wasn't an island, it was in the middle of the Peloponnesian peninsula, which would require us to depend on visual effects to make it look like one.”

He added, “But it turned out after, I don't know, six weeks or so of scouting, that nothing matched the Aman. That’s like life sometimes. You’re afraid you'll fall in love too early and there’s something better out there, but as it turns out, you were right in the first place.” You can theoretically stay at one of the resort's villas (rooms start at $1,800 a night) or get into the beach club for a day if you make it across the pond, but you’re likely going to need a substantial line of credit (or, you know, a former supermodel friend like Kate Hudson’s Birdie Jay).

If you think you’re getting private beach access, think again. “In the film, Miles’ villa is meant to be right on the water, just about. The Amanzoe villa does have a beach club, which they’ll drive you to, but it’s a little ways away,” Heinrichs added. “We shot here, with the yacht pulling up to the shore and all of that. One of the pools is down that way as well. It’s only about four-and-a-half kilometers away from the villa.”

Other Scenes Were Shot In Serbia

While much of the film was shot in Greece, the production team created all of the interiors of Miles’ mansion on sound stages in Belgrade, Serbia. Heinrichs added in the same interview that any of the scenes in the movie that take place in New York City, they recreated in Serbia, though they did some exterior shots in Connecticut and New York in the fall before they headed overseas.

Benoit Blanc’s Penthouse Is On Park Avenue

Twitter detectives have also located Blanc’s penthouse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The StreetEasy listing states that the penthouse located at 770 Park Avenue is back on the market four years after it sold for $9.9 million in 2018.

The listing indicates that the building was constructed by Italian-American architect Rosario Candela who Architectural Digest called the “mastermind behind the world’s most valuable apartments.” StreetEasy’s description names this Park Ave building “one of Candela’s greatest residential masterpieces.” For the balcony alone, we agree.