Knives Out and Nine Perfect Strangers actor Michael Shannon is set to make his directorial feature debut with an adaptation of the stage play Eric Larue.
Eric Larue was written by Brett Neveu and premiered at Chicago’s Red Orchid Theatre in 2002. The story follows “Janice, the mother of 17-year-old Eric, who shot and killed three of his classmates. As Janice faces a meeting of the mothers of the other boys, and a long-delayed visit to her son in prison, the story becomes not about the violence but about what we choose to think and do in order to survive trauma.”
Neveu has written the screenplay with Shannon directing. Filming is to take place in Wilmington, North Carolina.
“Eric Larue has so much to say about our country, about the way we try (sometimes quite ineptly) to deal with the trauma of living here, which is so insidious because it does not present itself overtly in concrete terms most of the time,” Shannon said. “Like most great stories, Eric Larue plays at the macro and a micro level simultaneously. When I read the screenplay, I immediately knew I had to direct it. I saw it. I heard it. I could feel it. And I wanted to make sure that it received just the right touch in all its aspects, because at the end of the day, it is an extraordinarily delicate thing.
“I find it interesting to align with artists possessing the most vivid imaginations, the most stringent yet empathetic senses of morality, and the most passionate and rigorous disciplines to create worlds and stories that contribute to our experience and understanding of what it is to be a human being in this day and age and, particularly, this country.”
Shannon will be seen next in the action film Bullet Train alongside Brad Pitt, Sandra Bullock, Joey King, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Andrew Koji, and Hiroyuki Sanada. He also reprises his Man of Steel role as General Zod for Warner Bros.’ The Flash, which is currently slated for release next year.
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Via Deadline
