I think Lex Luthor is one of the more fascinating villains in superhero comics if he’s done correctly. He’s boring when he’s just power-mad rich guy who doesn’t like Superman getting in the way of his plans. He becomes interesting when he takes the sensible approach that Superman is an unchecked power, and while that still comes up against Luthor’s raging ego, it’s actually coming from the same place as the superhero: I should be the one in charge.

I’m hoping we’ll see shades of that Lex Luthor in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, but at the very least we should see more psychological complexity than we did from Gene Hackman’s cartoonish performance in Richard Donner’s Superman.

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Image via Warner Bros.

Speaking to MTV [via The Playlist], Jesse Eisenberg explained his take on the character:

"There's an emotional core to character. It's not a silly villainous character," he told MTV. "...it is an entirely different thing. Also, the tone of that ['Superman'] movie is so different, like that movie wouldn't be made now. Like the way we expect movies to be now is to have some kind of — I mean, it's probably for the best — there's some kind of psychological accuracy. That the person is coming from a place probably diagnosable in some way."

Unsurprisingly, Eisenberg is still dancing around any specifics since the movie doesn’t come out until March, but he’s right that the demands of a modern superhero movie demand a little more depth, although Marvel has gotten away with some shallow villains for a while now.

While I don’t demand that Batman v Superman have the take on Luthor that I like, I hope that they’ll make him more than a foe who has a nefarious plan and simply sees Superman as an obstacle.


Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice opens March 25, 2016.  Click here to read Perri's interview with Eisenberg, and click here for more of our coverage for the film.

Peruse the recent links below.


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Image via Warner Bros.