Are you there, Zod? It's me, Michael Shannon.
I may have my doubts about Zack Snyder as a director for the upcoming Man of Steel Superman reboot, but his casting has been right on the money of late. After casting Henry Cavil as the titular hero and Amy Adams as spunky girl reporter Lois Lane, Warner Bros. announced today that Academy Award-nominated actor Michael Shannon will be stepping into the black satin tap pants of General Zod.
So what do we know about about our new big bad? Previously played by Terence Stamp in Superman II, General Zod is a villanous Kryptonian criminal who was sentence to the prison dimension of the Phantom Zone by Jor-El, Superman's birth father (and just by typing that sentence, I've forfeited any right to have sex for the next year). However, Snyder has declared his movie will stay away from the previous Donner/Singer Superman mythology, so this General Zod may be an entirely different villain altogether.
What made Stamp's portrayal so indelibly iconic was Zod's steely-eyed psychopathy was equal parts regal and almost apathetic -- he'd rip your spine out for insolence and seem bored while he did it. And anyone who saw Shannon as the supremely creepy FBI Agent Nelson Van Alden in Boardwalk Empire knows that he can play a tightly wound, fascinatingly creepy lunatic with the best of them.
This news comes after Zack Snyder made numerous denials that General Zod would even be featured in his new reboot. I'm not sure what happened -- Snyder was bluffing, Warner Bros. cracked the whip and called an audible -- but I'm just happy that for once we'll have a Superman story that doesn't involve Lex Luthor and a real estate scheme. But now that we've got our Zod, does that mean there's an Ursa casting announcement to follow fast behind?
ยทTOLDJA! Michael Shannon Gets Villain Role In Superman [Deadline]