[OPINION] First and foremost: let’s not forget that Hollywood is all about entertainment. That’s the very purpose of the industry – to provide entertainment, and make money doing so. Because of that very simple principal, I always find it comical, ironic, hypocritical, and in some cases downright childish, when members of the Hollywood elite take to the media to bash the very industry that made them. This time it’s Oliver Stone lambasting John Wick: Chapter 4, and Michael Shannon taking shots at Star Wars. For them I have a very simple message: Get over yourselves.
Let’s start with Stone. For literally no reason whatsoever, he felt the need to express his opinion on the latest Keanu Reeves action picture. “I saw John Wick 4 on the plane. Talk about volume. I think the film is disgusting beyond belief. Disgusting. I don’t know what people are thinking,” he told Variety. Since Oliver Stone doesn’t seem to have a clue, I’ll let him on a little secret: people are thinking it’s entertaining. It’s an enjoyable, two-hour departure from reality. And isn’t that what entertainment is all about? Escapism? People aren’t automatically thinking “this isn’t believable.” Even if they are, perhaps someone needs to remind him of the concept of “willing suspension of disbelief,” without which the majority of entertaining films could never exist. Oliver Stone seems to have forgotten that fact.
Oliver Stone, Michael Shannon out of touch
Michael Shannon’s recent comments in Empire Magazine’s printed interview (as Insider reports), weren’t much better. In it he describes the reasons he (allegedly) turned down a role in the Star Wars franchise:
“I don’t ever want to get stuck in a franchise. 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.”
~ Michael Shannon on why he supposedly turned down a role in Star Wars
*blink blink*
Says the guy who I’m certain did not turn down a likely sizeable sum to reprise his role of Zod in the recent Flash movie. You know, the one that’s part of the DC film franchise, perpetuating said franchise of the superhero movie genre that has become the industry’s poster-child of mindless entertainment?
Hollywood hypocrisy
(Image: Lucasfilm Ltd.)
But Michael Shannon says Zod’s is “actually a very relevant story,” so I guess that makes the fact that he’s doing exactly what he claims to oppose okay. News flash (pun intended) for you Michael: that’s called justifying your hypocrisy. And you do so without a hint of irony, as if the entire premise of Star Wars, i.e. battling systematic oppression, isn’t even more relevant today than it was forty-six years ago.
It’s one thing if you actually stick to your ideals. There are plenty of actors, unlike Michael Shannon, who have walked away from the industry all together. Or, in the alternative, they’ve moved to more independent features in efforts to uphold both their and the industry’s integrity. And for Oliver Stone, who cast Angelina Jolie as mother to Colin Farrell’s Alexander, to grouse about the believability of John Wick?
Talk about biting the Hollywood hand that feeds you.
