Michael Shannon to make directorial debut with school shooting film Eric Larue

Michael Shannon, one of the most reliable actors in the game, will take his turn behind the camera on the upcoming Eric Larue, according to a new Deadline report. The film is based on the play of the same name by Brett Neveu, who will adapt the script.

The plot of Eric Larue is all too timely. The film follows Janice, ​the mother of a 17-year-old who shot and killed three of his classmates. Per Deadline, “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.”

Eric Larue, which was inspired by the events of the Columbine massacre, premiered in 2002 at Chicago’s A Red Orchid Theater, where Neveu is an ensemble member and Shannon is a founding member. (According to Deadline, Shannon previously directed Neveu’s play Traitor there in 2018).

“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 says in a statement. “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.”

He continues, “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.”

The plot isn’t the only timely element of the film. Deadline notes that shooting was set to begin in Arkansas, but because the Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade has triggered the state’s particularly strict abortion ban, the filmmakers changed location to Wilmington, North Carolina. While the end result remains to be seen, Shannon’s leadership on the film is off to a strong start.