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Rumor: Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor has been cut from JL

TyrantII

Member
Am I remembering correctly that it's really Lex Luthor Jr?

They should land Kevin Spacy and give him some real material to chew through. Bring back pops while JR rots in jail.
 

Neophant

Member
Doesn't seem likely. He was name-dropped in the Justice League trailer earlier this year (with Arkham Asylum) being mentioned but if it's only a small scene I wouldn't mind if it got cut. Part of me does think we'll see a sharp shift in personality due to his time incarcerated and sent to the mental institution, which would probably mold his personality and mind closer to the envisioned representation of the character from the comics and TV shows.
 

SteveWD40

Member
Good choice, one of the worst performances in a comic book movie I can remember.

Yep, it was grating to a level I hadn't thought possible.

I imagine they thought they were being clever, rather than going with the obvious choices (Cranston for example), but there is a reason people said it was a bad idea...

Irritating guy was irritating.
 
That whole DC universe can disappear off a cliff for all i care.

Man of Steel sucked
Batman vs Superman sucked worse
Wonderwoman was OK
JL will be the same Schneider crap as Man of Steel and BvS, an unsatisfying mess.
 

jon bones

hot hot hanuman-on-man action
Yep, it was grating to a level I hadn't thought possible.

I imagine they thought they were being clever, rather than going with the obvious choices (Cranston for example), but there is a reason people said it was a bad idea...

Irritating guy was irritating.

i believe he was in to try for Jimmy Olsen but they made him an unwatchable Lex instead and put a bullet in Olsens head
 

WhatNXt

Member
Warner Bros are absolute cowards.

Every time they try to do something they think will be safe they fuck it up, and then their response to fuck ups is to completely fold under pressure and cause themselves to fuck up even more.

It's THEIR fault BvS was rushing headlong to get to Avengers Assemble super team territory, it's THEIR fault the film was grim dark and dominated by Batman, and all these stories we hear about production disruption, rewrites and tumult - are directly because of Warner Bros management. And people like Geoff Johns and David Ayer.

Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman is the first success they've had, but they've already set about undermining the shared universe they were trying to build in the first place. Batfleck, who - wanton murder aside - was the best thing about BvS, is now so disillusioned with what's going on he's not directing the standalone Batman movie, Warner Bros are messing up their already muddy shit puddle of a DC universe by saying they're going to explore elseworlds and spinoffs, before they've even got the core franchises right.

Snyder was never the problem. I feel sorry for him, especially with the pressure he's endured at a difficult time in his life. The problem is that Warner Bros aren't as clever or as patient with their gambles and failures as Disney are.
 
One more reminder about just how lucky Marvel has been with casting.

The casting of Eisenberg wasn't the problem. It was the fucking direction he was given. They should just write the character out altogether and then have his father step in, intent on bring down Supes for imprisoning his son.
 
The casting of Eisenberg wasn't the problem. It was the fucking direction he was given. They should just write the character out altogether and then have his father step in, intent on bring down Supes for imprisoning his son.
With Snyder there was probably no direction. Just be smart and weird.
 

Imbarkus

As Sartre noted in his contemplation on Hell in No Exit, the true horror is other members.
Warner Bros are absolute cowards.

Every time they try to do something they think will be safe they fuck it up, and then their response to fuck ups is to completely fold under pressure and cause themselves to fuck up even more.

It's THEIR fault BvS was rushing headlong to get to Avengers Assemble super team territory, it's THEIR fault the film was grim dark and dominated by Batman, and all these stories we hear about production disruption, rewrites and tumult - are directly because of Warner Bros management. And people like Geoff Johns and David Ayer.

Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman is the first success they've had, but they've already set about undermining the shared universe they were trying to build in the first place. Batfleck, who - wanton murder aside - was the best thing about BvS, is now so disillusioned with what's going on he's not directing the standalone Batman movie, Warner Bros are messing up their already muddy shit puddle of a DC universe by saying they're going to explore elseworlds and spinoffs, before they've even got the core franchises right.

Snyder was never the problem. I feel sorry for him, especially with the pressure he's endured at a difficult time in his life. The problem is that Warner Bros aren't as clever or as patient with their gambles and failures as Disney are.

I agree with you!

Like I said, people don't like to buy from a hungry salesman. WB stinks of knee-jerk desperation. If you want something real and provable to judge the executives by, judge them by how leaky this ship has been.
 

shira

Member
Snyder was never the problem. I feel sorry for him, especially with the pressure he's endured at a difficult time in his life. The problem is that Warner Bros aren't as clever or as patient with their gambles and failures as Disney are.
Disagree. He put his name on it. Those are his movies.
 

Imbarkus

As Sartre noted in his contemplation on Hell in No Exit, the true horror is other members.
I don't blame Eisenburg, or Snyder. So many people blame Snyder for a movie with like a dozen producers including his own wife and Christopher Nolan. Like video games, collaborative failures hand out collaborative blame. You want to knee-jerk blame the director, that's what his name is there for: so everyone else can move on and keep working. I should think you quit doing that once you learn a bit more about the process.

Eisenburg the actor gave it his all. The flaws were all in concept and character. Plenty of reviewers pointed out that if Eisenburg hadn't brought a quirkier interpretation to the character, literally everyone in the movie would have been dour and joyless. At least his Luthor enjoyed playing his part in the story.

Most of the irritation with Eisenburg's performance has to do with:

  1. Plot contrivances that focus him on the "Meta-Human Thesis" and explaining the source of all our old myths to get some Kryptonite instead of just emphasizing the government's powerless as Metropolis had been destroyed 18 months earlier, and the week before in Africa.
    MetropolisLex.jpg

    You had to read a Dr. Pepper promotional lead-in comic tie-in to find out that Lex lost any building of his own in Zod & Supes final battle. This is entirely a result of the studio rush to launch "The Big Team-Up," forcing that awkward Meta-Human thesis into the movie in like three different awkward ways.
  2. Unfavorable comparisons to previous Lex Luthors, and the general audience's lack of familiarity with the concept and character of Alexander Luthor, and the scripts ambiguity as to which actual Luthor this kid actually is.
    LxSrManofSteel.jpg

    If original Lex had been killed in the Zod/Super battle, than Eisenburg's character could have actually had *gasp* a motivation. What's more DC would have pulled this off mere months before Civil War came in with the same motivation for their similarly-unrecognizable MCU version of Baron Zemo (about which no one complained, since the character's motivation made sense).
  3. Shying away from the inspiration. They cast him as a quirky young genius billionaire mad scientist to capture some of the success and clout of The Social Network. Even further, to maybe capture some of the fear arising at all the brash young silicon valley (and Cambridge Analytica) tech execs willing to unleash any technology first and see what happens later. But Lex's only skill turns out to be political manipulation, and his only noteworthy hack seem to be fooling an improbably-present fingerprint scanner.
    HackerLuthor.gif

    Maybe if they made him more of an actual Zuckerberg character, people would have resented his coming up with Logo Cover Images for his Meta-Human Thesis playlist.
 

a916

Member
Same, just an awful casting and awful scenes in BvS


Wonder Woman really carrying the entire DC universe on her back

Eh, that's wrong.

Watch him in Social Network, if he put in that type of performance no one wouldn't be complaining... instead they let him some weird nervous version of Luthor.

The casting of Eisenberg wasn't the problem. It was the fucking direction he was given. They should just write the character out altogether and then have his father step in, intent on bring down Supes for imprisoning his son.

Just retcon it and pretend he comes out of prison a changed man. We're comic book fans here, we're used to this.
 

Lokimaru

Member
I don't blame Eisenburg, or Snyder. So many people blame Snyder for a movie with like a dozen producers including his own wife and Christopher Nolan. Like video games, collaborative failures hand out collaborative blame. You want to knee-jerk blame the director, that's what his name is there for: so everyone else can move on and keep working. I should think you quit doing that once you learn a bit more about the process.

Eisenburg the actor gave it his all. The flaws were all in concept and character. Plenty of reviewers pointed out that if Eisenburg hadn't brought a quirkier interpretation to the character, literally everyone in the movie would have been dour and joyless. At least his Luthor enjoyed playing his part in the story.

Most of the irritation with Eisenburg's performance has to do with:

  1. Plot contrivances that focus him on the "Meta-Human Thesis" and explaining the source of all our old myths to get some Kryptonite instead of just emphasizing the government's powerless as Metropolis had been destroyed 18 months earlier, and the week before in Africa.
    MetropolisLex.jpg

    You had to read a Dr. Pepper promotional lead-in comic tie-in to find out that Lex lost any building of his own in Zod & Supes final battle. This is entirely a result of the studio rush to launch "The Big Team-Up," forcing that awkward Meta-Human thesis into the movie in like three different awkward ways.
  2. Unfavorable comparisons to previous Lex Luthors, and the general audience's lack of familiarity with the concept and character of Alexander Luthor, and the scripts ambiguity as to which actual Luthor this kid actually is.
    LxSrManofSteel.jpg

    If original Lex had been killed in the Zod/Super battle, than Eisenburg's character could have actually had *gasp* a motivation. What's more DC would have pulled this off mere months before Civil War came in with the same motivation for their similarly-unrecognizable MCU version of Baron Zemo (about which no one complained, since the character's motivation made sense).
  3. Shying away from the inspiration. They cast him as a quirky young genius billionaire mad scientist to capture some of the success and clout of The Social Network. Even further, to maybe capture some of the fear arising at all the brash young silicon valley (and Cambridge Analytica) tech execs willing to unleash any technology first and see what happens later. But Lex's only skill turns out to be political manipulation, and his only noteworthy hack seem to be fooling an improbably-present fingerprint scanner.
    HackerLuthor.gif

    Maybe if they made him more of an actual Zuckerberg character, people would have resented his coming up with Logo Cover Images for his Meta-Human Thesis playlist.

People moved on from the Black Zero event, Shit was handled, Statues were erected, case closed. Were there after effects YEAH! But for the most part people went on with there lives. Hell Jenny and Perry were almost killed yet they seemed fine. Life goes on.

Also Lex is not a kid, a man in his thirties is not a Kid.

Lex does have a motivation. He hates God and sees Superman as a stand in. He makes this very clear. I just can't see Lex being a educated Man believing in God but then again he knows about Wonder Woman so... It'd be like seeing Superman yet still saying Aliens don't exist.

Lex had more video footage in the files that wasn't shown. He got the symbols from the actual characters he didn't come up with them. Why do people always assume he came up with them? The Flashes costume has a big lightening bolt on the front, while Aquaman has the A on his belt buckle.
 

Imbarkus

As Sartre noted in his contemplation on Hell in No Exit, the true horror is other members.
People moved on from the Black Zero event, Shit was handled, Statues were erected, case closed. Were there after effects YEAH! But for the most part people went on with there lives. Hell Jenny and Perry were almost killed yet they seemed fine. Life goes on.

You know, I enjoyed BvS waaaay more than most of the people on this board, and even I have had just about enough of people leaping through any logical fallacy necessary to nullify any criticism of it.

BatmanVSupermanOpen7.gif


People not being over the Black Zero event is literally the premise of the film.
 

Bob White

Member
A petty and jealous tech genius business mogul with desires to tear down Superman because he resents what he feels his existence means to his own worldview. It's literally Lex Luthor at his most defining. Only now he's also a physical opposite foil to Superman himself, small and feeble, rather than the tall and lumbering businessman he's usually shown as.

...oh, and he talks just like the studio and director wanted him to be "quirky" like Joker. His character and performance was literally Joker given lines Lex's character should have.
 

Loxley

Member
Eisenberg's Luthor was/is at least 50% of the reason why I have a hard time enjoying BVS. By the end it's clear he'd rather be playing the Joker.
 

ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Its painful to see DC failing so badly like this. Perhaps they should give up and go back to solo movies.
 

a916

Member
Some people are really terrible at differentiating talent of actor and direction of a role.

A lot of people don't like the direction Jesse went, but it's comical to suggest the direction that people DID want, wouldn't have been possible by Eisenberg.
 

Alienous

Member
Eisenberg was badly miscast.


He simply never had the gravitas to have a chance of approaching Lex Luthor. He doesn't even have the right voice - it isn't commanding.

The direction didn't help but I've seen no evidence that he was ever capable of portraying Lex Luthor.
 
Eisenberg was badly miscast.



He simply never had the gravitas to have a chance of approaching Lex Luthor. He doesn't even have the right voice - it isn't commanding.

The direction didn't help but I've seen no evidence that he was ever capable of portraying Lex Luthor.

You've never seen The Social Network? Weird. You should get on that.
 
I've seen it. It's a performance that entirely lacks the social warmth that is characteristic of Luthor. It's nothing like Lex Luthor in many ways, really.

Plenty of versions of Lex lack social warmth. I'm pretty partial to animated Lex, and he's not particularly warm in that show. That's the problem I have with these discussions of whether an actor "really fits" these characters. There are core tenants of any given character, sure. However, these characters have been imagined and re-imagined in so many different ways that just because a take doesn't reflect your personal interpretation of the character, doesn't mean that the take can't be as equally valid. Part of the fun of superheroes is the various interpretations.

'66 Batman is just as valid a take on Batman as Dark Knight Returns Batman or as Batman Beyond, for example.
 

- J - D -

Member
Jesse's angry scenes in Social Network are so good and I bet some would even work edited into a BvS scene. It's a shame what he was directed to do as Lex.
 

Parch

Member
Probably just wishful thinking rumor but still an accurate reflection of the problems.

You don't make Batman into an asshole. You don't make Luthor into whatever the hell that was supposed to be. A combo of bad writing, bad production or bad casting, but it was blatantly obvious that BvS had major problems and changes needed be made.
 

Alienous

Member
Plenty of versions of Lex lack social warmth. I'm pretty partial to animated Lex, and he's not particularly warm in that show. That's the problem I have with these discussions of whether an actor "really fits" these characters. There are core tenants of any given character, sure. However, these characters have been imagined and re-imagined in so many different ways that just because a take doesn't reflect your personal interpretation of the character, doesn't mean that the take can't be as equally valid. Part of the fun of superheroes is the various interpretations.

'66 Batman is just as valid a take on Batman as Dark Knight Returns Batman or as Batman Beyond, for example.

At which point characters become pointless, which they aren't. You can go to Batman's Wikipedia page and Batman isn't viewed as a fully deputized agent of the law, but he is as Batman '66. There is actually a concensus on what, at a character's core, they are and they aren't, in spite of the multitude of variations. Batman has been a vampire, Batman isn't a vampire.

And when I say social warmth I simply mean that Lex Luthor is mostly commonly depicted as being capable of knowing when not to talk down to someone - he has the ability to be charming, for instance, and that's true of even animated Lex Luthor. That's an attribute I didn't see in Jesse Eisenberg's performance in the Social Network.

Anyway, agree to disagree.
 

Imbarkus

As Sartre noted in his contemplation on Hell in No Exit, the true horror is other members.
Eisenberg was badly miscast.



He simply never had the gravitas to have a chance of approaching Lex Luthor. He doesn't even have the right voice - it isn't commanding.

The direction didn't help but I've seen no evidence that he was ever capable of portraying Lex Luthor.

Character should be more overtly Alexander Luthor.

The commanding gravitas character you are searching for was Eisenburg's characters' dead abusive father.

Making a parallel between an awkward and isolated Alexander Luthor and Eisenburg's portrayal of Mark Zuckerburg wold have been cool if they had actually accomplished it.

As it was 300 mil in marketing never really made clear who Eisenburg was playing, did it?
 

Bleepey

Member
I don't blame Eisenburg, or Snyder. So many people blame Snyder for a movie with like a dozen producers including his own wife and Christopher Nolan. Like video games, collaborative failures hand out collaborative blame. You want to knee-jerk blame the director, that's what his name is there for: so everyone else can move on and keep working. I should think you quit doing that once you learn a bit more about the process.

Eisenburg the actor gave it his all. The flaws were all in concept and character. Plenty of reviewers pointed out that if Eisenburg hadn't brought a quirkier interpretation to the character, literally everyone in the movie would have been dour and joyless. At least his Luthor enjoyed playing his part in the story.

Most of the irritation with Eisenburg's performance has to do with:

  1. Plot contrivances that focus him on the "Meta-Human Thesis" and explaining the source of all our old myths to get some Kryptonite instead of just emphasizing the government's powerless as Metropolis had been destroyed 18 months earlier, and the week before in Africa.
    MetropolisLex.jpg

    You had to read a Dr. Pepper promotional lead-in comic tie-in to find out that Lex lost any building of his own in Zod & Supes final battle. This is entirely a result of the studio rush to launch "The Big Team-Up," forcing that awkward Meta-Human thesis into the movie in like three different awkward ways.
  2. Unfavorable comparisons to previous Lex Luthors, and the general audience's lack of familiarity with the concept and character of Alexander Luthor, and the scripts ambiguity as to which actual Luthor this kid actually is.
    LxSrManofSteel.jpg

    If original Lex had been killed in the Zod/Super battle, than Eisenburg's character could have actually had *gasp* a motivation. What's more DC would have pulled this off mere months before Civil War came in with the same motivation for their similarly-unrecognizable MCU version of Baron Zemo (about which no one complained, since the character's motivation made sense).
  3. Shying away from the inspiration. They cast him as a quirky young genius billionaire mad scientist to capture some of the success and clout of The Social Network. Even further, to maybe capture some of the fear arising at all the brash young silicon valley (and Cambridge Analytica) tech execs willing to unleash any technology first and see what happens later. But Lex's only skill turns out to be political manipulation, and his only noteworthy hack seem to be fooling an improbably-present fingerprint scanner.
    HackerLuthor.gif

    Maybe if they made him more of an actual Zuckerberg character, people would have resented his coming up with Logo Cover Images for his Meta-Human Thesis playlist.

I think the problem with Lex in the audience's eye was that his motivation was not either a) personal or b) financial but instead it was c)philosophical. The only person who he gave a shit about in the film was his dead father who he might have killed, he exploited the govt's dislike for bad PR and willingness to use Superman as a scapegoat to force them to keep quiet about him using US govt weapons in Africa and he basically sounds like Neil Degrasse Tyson when talking about God being good. Also see

I'd also like to add that it's why Zemo's motivation resonated more with audiences than Lex's.
 
You've never seen The Social Network? Weird. You should get on that.

It was a huge blunder especially with Trump getting elected president.

Luthor_Superman_II.JPG


Then you had an older Batman, Superman well into his 30's then not have an older Luthor. It also wasn't the character millions have come to love for years. He is my favorite villain and one of the best characters in comics and they went and threw all that away for a zuckerberg reprisal when everyone was asking for a Walter white. Personally I just wanted them to stick to some of the source material. Lex thinks of himself as superman and then this alien comes and crashes all that and it's killing him while smallville extended it in a beautiful way with his narcism feeling betrayed by superman as he was in fact a bad friend and hating the fact that he is presented as superior creating envy and urge for revenge for whatever he perceived to be a slight against him.

Lex gets elected president in part due to the previous administrations handling of domestic policy such as Gotham city and its corruption while needing to be in the center of attention, perfect when you got a movie starring batman right? Also perfect kick off for creating frictions between all 3 as superman at first friends with Luthor also tries to help people while invading on batman and his domain. What a triangle. As superman realises lex is the bad guy, Luthor wants him now dead and batman is mad at them both.

Can even have WW be the one that mediate peace between batman and superman to deal with the real problem. Throw in doomsday as a creation to kill superman by lex for that third act. Executed right and it works. But focus on lex not the monster.

To pull all this off he of course needs to be charming as hell as his character was and still is to me.
 

Imbarkus

As Sartre noted in his contemplation on Hell in No Exit, the true horror is other members.
...[/URL]

I'd also like to add that it's why Zemo's motivation resonated more with audiences than Lex's.

I agree with all this.

Nekketsu Kõha;246980212 said:
It was a huge blunder especially with Trump getting elected president.

...

I dig drawing the parallels, but I mean, the actual plot of BvS involved non-charismatic tech genius Alexander Luthor manipulating events and fake news to discredit both Superman and Batman. He's more of a Palmer Lucky, trollface, alt-righty personality, but more dangerous in that he's an unstable genius. Like an evil young Bannon with Cambridge Analytica skills built-in. This could have worked with some demonstration of any actual frightening hacking or manipulating skill, culminating in something to his actual benefit or profit--a better crescendo than Granny's Peach Tea and blowing up Congress needlessly.

Instead, backroom politics gave him a Doomsday weapon before Senator Finch even gave him an answer about a coupla rocks he already stole. The piublic seemed to turn on and off Superman on a whim and a dime. And since Lex enacted all his plots, including blowing up congress, using a totally unique metal that can only be traced to him (not vibranium!!), I guess he just decided "fuck it, let's blow this whole thing up and ally with Apocalypse."

Come to think of it, that tracks with Trump. I bet if you did a photoshop mashup properly with BvS Lex Luthor and BvS Doomsday it would look kind of like Trump.
 

Bleepey

Member
You know, I enjoyed BvS waaaay more than most of the people on this board, and even I have had just about enough of people leaping through any logical fallacy necessary to nullify any criticism of it.

BatmanVSupermanOpen7.gif


People not being over the Black Zero event is literally the premise of the film.

I kinda agree with both of you. It was handled in the way that statues were erected and whilst Superman is generally well liked as evidence by the statue and mountains of good publicity from the Daily Planet and news reports. It was only after Lex did the false flag(s) and Wallace Keefe stuff did public opinion start to change.



I agree with all this.



I dig drawing the parallels, but I mean, the actual plot of BvS involved non-charismatic tech genius Alexander Luthor manipulating events and fake news to discredit both Superman and Batman. He's more of a Palmer Lucky, trollface, alt-righty personality, but more dangerous in that he's an unstable genius. Like an evil young Bannon with Cambridge Analytica skills built-in. This could have worked with some demonstration of any actual frightening hacking or manipulating skill, culminating in something to his actual benefit or profit--a better crescendo than Granny's Peach Tea and blowing up Congress needlessly.

I disagree he was feeding breadcrumbs to Batman and Superman throughout the film leading them on a path to follow. Sending notes to Supes, info to Batman, stoking tension at the banquet. He got what he wanted at the end of the film, Superman dead even if he only briefly ruined his rep./

Instead, backroom politics gave him a Doomsday weapon before Senator Finch even gave him an answer about a coupla rocks he already stole. The piublic seemed to turn on and off Superman on a whim and a dime. And since Lex enacted all his plots, including blowing up congress, using a totally unique metal that can only be traced to him (not vibranium!!), I guess he just decided "fuck it, let's blow this whole thing up and ally with Apocalypse."

The film had many examples where it showed public opinion on Superman grew worst with time. Monuments at beginning and heroic montage, then negative news reports and then protests before the bombing. The metal was unique and the argument presented in the film was the govt was more than willing to blame Superman than admit they tried to drone strike villagers or a govt contractor was in Africa testing weapons.

Come to think of it, that tracks with Trump. I bet if you did a photoshop mashup properly with BvS Lex Luthor and BvS Doomsday it would look kind of like Trump.

He's laying the groundwork for an insanity defence
 
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