After the release of The Bikeriders, director Jeff Nichols was keen to start on another project, but according to his frequent collaborator, Michael Shannon, no one is willing to cough up the dough.
“It’s kind of mind-boggling,” said Shannon while speaking with Variety. “Jeff has a hard time getting money to make a film. He’s made six films—I would say all of them at least excellent, if not magnificent motion pictures. He can’t get the money. Granted, he’s ambitious; he doesn’t want to just go and make a $1 million movie, but he shouldn’t have to at this point in his career.”
Shannon then joked, “If you would like to see another Jeff Nichols/Michael Shannon movie, please go visit our GoFundMe page.“
The actor has appeared in all of Nichols’ movies, sometimes as the lead and others as a supporting character. The director has even said that he owes his career to Shannon. “He is not just a collaborator; he has become family to me. I owe my career to Michael Shannon. I learned how to direct from directing Michael Shannon,” he said. “From the outside, it can feel kind of cute, but it’s not. I love that guy, and I want him in movies because he’s the greatest actor in the world. And if you’re a director and you have access to the greatest actor in the world, it makes sense that you would call him all the time.“
Although The Bikeriders received largely positive reviews, it wasn’t a big success at the box office, grossing just $36.3 million worldwide. It was then dumped on VOD just 18 days after its release. “The film is an impressionist take on a very short-lived chapter in Americana, with the bike gangs of the fifties and sixties ultimately co-opted into organized crime, with gangdom itself now seen as sinister even if that initially wasn’t the intention,” wrote our own Chris Bumbray in his review. “The Bikeriders is an elegy for that lost time and is thoroughly engaging from start to finish. No one makes movies like Jeff Nichols does, and the fact that I left The Bikeriders wanting even more shows you how good it is.“
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