Lex Luthor Star Jesse Eisenberg Says He'd "Be Shocked" If He Appeared in Another DC Movie

Jesse Eisenberg isn't holding out very much hope that'll he'll be making a return to the DC Films Universe as Lex Luthor – in his own words, he'd be "shocked" if he ever appeared in another DC movie. However, Eisenberg did let it also be known that it would be a pleasant shock," if it were to happen. Jesse Eisenberg played Lex Luthor in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in 2016, where he was the main villain manipulating Henry Cavill's Superman and Ben Affleck's Batman into a brutal feud. Eisenberg's Lex was also featured in Justice League (2017) and Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021), where he was setup for a larger role in the franchise to come. 

However, as director Zack Snyder's era of DC Films has come to an end Jessie Eisenberg's Lex Luthor has seemed like a pretty sure addition to the list of movie universe elements that will be getting cut from the future of the franchise. For his part, Jesse Eisenberg seems perfectly okay with DC moving on: 

"Listen, I'm not a comic book fan," Eisenberg told Deadline. "To me, it was not playing a role that I'd envisioned since childhood. To me, it was a chance to play this great character that this great writer wrote, and I loved doing that. So, to play it is a joy, and to not play it isn't something that I'm going to be ashamed to tell my kids about, because that is not an important genre in my life, even though I loved doing that movie." 

What Eisenberg maybe didn't love as much was the intense backlash to Batman v Superman: 

"I felt very personal about it," he told a crowd at the 28th Sarajevo Film Festival. "The writer, Chris Terrio, is a very serious writer, and he's a very emotional person. He thought a lot about my character, and I thought a lot about my character too. I talked with my acting coach about the character a lot, about his backstory with his father and his emotional life—and then people hate me."

Still, despite the turbulent experience playing Lex Luthor in a big DC Movie, Jessie Eisenberg has not been deterred from comic book movies as a whole: "Because as an actor, you do all kinds of different things, and sometimes great roles show up in really commercial things and sometimes terrible roles show up in independent films."

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – Ultimate Edition is streaming on HBO Max.