Michael Rosenbaum Reveals WB Didn’t Bite On “Brilliant” Plan For Lex Luthor From Smallville Creators

Despite being approached to reprise his role as Lex Luthor in The CW‘s recent “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover event, Smallville star Michael Rosenbaum declined, telling fans on social media that the network had offered too little money and not provided him with a copy of the script. This is apparently just the latest conflict he has had with Warner Bros. Television over the character, who was a series regular for seven of Smallville‘s ten-season run. During an interview with ComicBook.com’s Talking Shop, Rosenbaum said that Smallville creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar had a great take that they never managed to get off the ground because of WB wasn’t interested.

Asked whether he would ever go back to playing Lex, Rosenbaum said that he would, but that he would have to feel like there was something new he was adding to the character’s mythology. That likely would not have happened in “Crisis on Infinite Earths” anyway, since even Clark (Tom Welling) and Lois (Erica Durance) from Smallville only got a couple of minutes of screen time.

“Yeah, I just want to I don’t want to do the role unless it’s really something special that I could go and kill it again,” Rosenbaum told ComicBook.com. “That I could just get up there and show everyone what, who Lex is. That’s the real thing. People are like, ‘would you play Lex again?’ I’m like, ‘sure — like Al and Miles who created Smallville, we had an idea and it was brilliant but for some insane reason, the studio wasn’t interested in that, which was bonkers, I won’t say what it is, but it was bonkers, it was brilliant, it was like there’s no way this couldn’t happen and especially with them ’cause they’re brilliant writers and creators, and it was just the perfect team and I’m like ‘wow, this is like a slam dunk,’ and I finally go ‘all right,’ but it didn’t happen. I always say it’s the hand of fate. Things happen for a reason, so whenever it happens, when I play Lex again that’ll be great. I don’t plan to…I don’t know if that’s true. I mean, do I plan to? I’m sure something’s gonna happen one day, where someone’s gonna do something respectful and really quality stuff that I’ll go ‘yeah, that’s good. This is the perfect storm, I can show my chops, this is not gonna be embarrassing, this is gonna be cool, this is like a one-two punch.’ Like that was who I was, and boom now I’m an older man and let’s tear some shit up.”

What do you think? Would you like to see an older, wiser Rosenbaum tackle the role of Lex Luthor? Sound off in the comments or tweet me at @russburlingame.

You can stream all ten seasons of Smallville on Hulu.