And so it comes to pass: Michael Shannon, that steely eyed princeling of the scene-stealing character actors’ guild, has become the latest figure to say he does not much like modern superhero movies. Or, more specifically, Star Wars, which he recently described as “mindless entertainment” in an interview with Empire magazine.
Hang on, I hear you ask, is this the same Shannon who’s currently starring in much-hyped DC multiverse movie The Flash? Well, yes, but the actor apparently didn’t have much fun filming his much-heralded return as General Zod, the alien supervillain who turns up (again) to try to terraform the Earth into a planet fit for the resurrection of his Kryptonian people.
“I’m not gonna lie, it wasn’t quite satisfying for me, as an actor,” Shannon told Collider. “These multiverse movies are like somebody playing with action figures. It’s like, ‘Here’s this person. Here’s that person. And they’re fighting!’”
Shannon reckoned his first outing as Zod in 2013’s Man of Steel was more creatively nourishing. “It’s not quite the in-depth character study situation that I honestly felt Man of Steel was. Whether people think that’s crazy or not, I don’t even care. I really felt like Man of Steel was actually a pretty sophisticated story.”
Whether you agree with Shannon or not, he has a point about the current state of superhero movies. It’s easy to forget that Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel was two-thirds of a decent comic book flick, with space and time for characterisation of its main protagonists, namely Superman and Zod himself. Fast forward a decade or so, and the rise of the ensemble superhero movie (of which multiverse films are the most extreme, muddled example) means that we rarely get time to focus on individuals.
In The Flash, it’s Ezra Miller’s titular speedy superhero who gets all the attention and depth, with characters such as Michael Keaton’s Batman, Sasha Calle’s Supergirl and Zod spinning around him like half-seen satellites. I happen to think director Andy Muschietti did a great job of representing each of the above, even with such limited screen time. And it’s intriguing to note the difference in reception to The Flash from those in the geekosphere and more mainstream critics. It really is a great comic book movie, for those who actually read comic books and are used to these epic, apex adventures featuring dozens of superheroes in print. To the rest of the world, and perhaps to Shannon, not so much.
The good thing about DC at the moment, for all the studio’s mistakes in the Snyder era, is that it is capable of delivering movies such as The Flash and spiky character pieces such as Joker (now branded DC Elseworlds flicks under the new leadership of James Gunn and Peter Safran). The key to the success of the studio’s future will be whether it is able to inject greater characterisation into its audience-friendly superhero epics, in films such as the Gunn-penned-and-directed Superman: Legacy. After all, nobody ever suggested that Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, or Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man (from rival studio Marvel) lacked personality and individuality, and both those superheroes have appeared in multiple ensemble flicks.
Star Wars? It’s a great pity to hear that Shannon turned it down, because in many ways he’s the perfect actor for these fantasy genre pieces – capable of chewing scenery with such an impressive screen presence that the material will always feel more grounded (and simultaneously elevated) when he’s present. The mere thought of the Boardwalk Empire actor as a Sith Lord, or even high-ranking member of the Empire (some sort of Grand Moff perhaps) would be enough to have Star Wars fans popping bottles of Xixorian green champagne. Bring Shannon in as the big baddie, and get this written properly, and there might have been no need for JJ Abrams to bring back Ian McDiarmid’s fabulous but completely rinsed-out Emperor Palpatine as a weird Sith zombie in the execrable Rise of Skywalker.
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Ironically, it’s the star of 99 Homes and Revolutionary Road who has the sort of deathly stare that might even have made such a cheap resurrection work. Perhaps we should all point him politely in the direction of far more character-led and intelligently paced Star Wars TV series such as Andor and The Mandalorian, and hope that Disney reaches out again. If there was ever an actor who could live up to the legacy of legendary genre heavyweights James Earl Jones, Max von Sydow and Marlon Brando, then surely it’s Shannon.