Michael Shannon Rejected ‘Star Wars’ Because Blockbusters Aren’t ‘Stimulating to Work On’: ‘The World Doesn’t Need More Mindless Entertainment’
Michael Shannon revealed in a recent interview with Empire magazine (via Insider) that he turned down a role in the “Star Wars” franchise due to his overall wariness over big Hollywood franchise movies. Shannon did not reveal the role, but he said his reason for rejecting came down to him being “a bit wary about those giant movies” because they “take a lot of time and I don’t find them very stimulating to work on.”
“I don’t ever want to get stuck in a franchise,” Shannon said. “I don’t find them interesting and I don’t want to perpetuate them. If I’m making something, I want there to be some kind of purpose to it — I don’t want to make mindless entertainment. The world doesn’t need more mindless entertainment. We’re inundated with it.”
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Of course, Shannon did find himself in a franchise when he accepted the role of General Zod in Zack Snyder’s “Man of Steel,” the first installment in the director’s DC Universe. Shannon told Empire that he signed on for a franchise movie like “Man of Steel” because the script was “actually a very relevant story.”
“It’s basically looking at a civilization that destroyed their own planet and think the solution is to go off and destroy another,” Shannon said. “When you hear that hypothetically, if we destroy the Earth, we might go live on Mars — it’s the same thing. I didn’t look at Zod as a villain. I just saw him as a guy whose job is to protect his people.”
While Shannon enjoyed his franchise work on “Man of Steel,” the same can’t be said for reprising the villain in the just-released DC tentpole “The Flash.”
“I’m not going to lie — it wasn’t quite satisfying for me, as an actor,” Shannon told Collider about “The Flash” production. “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!’ It’s not quite the in-depth character study situation that I honestly felt ‘Man of Steel’ was.”
With “The Flash” now in theaters, Shannon is currently free of Hollywood tentpoles for the time being. “The Flash” is playing in theaters nationwide.
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