Superman: Legacy: Nicholas Hoult in Talks to Play Lex Luthor

Hoult is in talks to play the iconic villain in James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DCU.

November 20, 2023, 6:26pm

Superman: Legacy has officially found its Lex Luthor. On Monday, reports revealed that Nicholas Hoult (The Menu, Mad Max Fury Road) has been cast in the role of Superman’s iconic archnemesis in James Gunn’s DC reboot. Reports from earlier this year had suggested that Hoult was in contention for the role, and that he had actually auditioned for the role of Superman as well, which ultimately went to David Corenswet. Hoult was also previously in the running to portray Batman in Matt Reeves’ The Batman reboot, a role that ultimately went to Robert Pattinson.

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Hoult is the latest in a long line of actors to portray Lex Luthor, which have included Michael Rosenbaum in The CW’s Smallville, Gene Hackman in Richard Donner’s Superman movies, Jesse Eisenberg in 2016’s Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Jon Cryer in The CW’s Supergirl.

What Is Superman: Legacy About?

Per DC Studios, Superman: Legacy tells the story of Superman’s journey to reconcile his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing as Clark Kent of Smallville, Kansas. He is the embodiment of truth, justice and the American way, guided by human kindness in a world that sees kindness as old-fashioned. Superman: Legacy will be written and directed by Gunn, and will serve as the first film installment of his and Peter Safran’s DC Universe reboot.

Superman: Legacy will star David Corenswet as Clark Kent / Superman, alongside Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, María Gabriela de Faría as Angela Spica / The Engineer, Isabela Merced as Kendra Saunders / Hawkgirl, Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner, Edi Gathegi as Michael Holt / Mr. Terrific, and Anthony Carrigan as Rex Mason / Metamorpho.

“It’s not an origin story,” Safran told reporters earlier this year. “It focuses on Superman balancing his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing. Superman represents truth, justice, and the American way. He has kindness in a world that thinks of kindness as old fashioned.”

What Is on the DC Universe Slate?

As Gunn and Safran revealed earlier this year, the initial DC Studios slate for “Gods and Monsters” will include movies for Superman: Legacy, The Brave and the Bold, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, Swamp Thing, and The Authority. It will include the HBO Max television shows Waller, Booster Gold, Lanterns, Paradise Lost, and an animated Creature Commandos series.

“A lot of people think it’s going to be Marvel 2.0, and definitely I learned a lot of stuff at Marvel. I think that we have a lot of differences,” Gunn explained at the time. “We are telling a big, huge, central story that is like Marvel, except for, I think that we’re a lot more planned out than Marvel from the beginning because we’ve gotten a group of writers together to work that story out completely. But we’re also creating a universe that is like Star Wars, where there’s different times, different places, different things, or Game of Thrones, where characters are a little bit more morally complex.”