Zack Snyder's vision for the DCEU was undeniably unique and his Mark Zuckerberg-inspired Lex Luthor proved incredibly divisive. Ironically, The Social Network's Jesse Eisenberg was tasked with playing the villain and, well, he did the best with what he had to work with.
The actor first played Lex in 2016's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and reprised his role in Justice League's post-credits scene. It appears that the idea from there was for Eisenberg to team up with Deathstroke in Ben Affleck's version of The Batman, though the "Whedon Cut" of Justice League had him make plans to form the Injustice League.
Looking back at his past roles in a new interview, Eisenberg admitted that Batman v Superman marked his first true career setback as an actor.
"I was in this 'Batman' movie and the 'Batman' movie was so poorly received, and I was so poorly received," he recalled. "I’ve never said this before and it’s kind of embarrassing to admit, but I genuinely think it actually hurt my career in a real way, because I was poorly received in something so public."
"I’ve been in poorly received things that just don’t see the light of day, and for the most part, no one knows, but this was so public, and I don’t read notices or reviews or movie press or anything, so I was unaware of how poorly it was received," Eisenberg added.
His career did recover but Lex Luthor appears to be a role he'd rather forget. The character lives on, though, and has since been played by Jon Cryer in the Arrowverse and Michael Cudlitz in Superman & Lois. Next up is Nicholas Hoult in James Gunn's Superman.
In 2021, Batman v Superman writer Chris Terrio revealed that the movie originally had a much darker ending for Lex:
"The studio seemed to take this position after BvS that my writing was too dark and that this was their problem. But what they didn’t mention was that, for example, in the draft of the Batman/Superman script that W.B. had developed - [which was] the draft I was handed when I joined the project - Batman was not only branding criminals with a bat brand, he also ended the movie by branding Lex Luthor."
"That ending was a point over which I explicitly went to the mat with the studio again and again. I argued that Batman cannot end the movie continuing this behavior, which amounted to torture, because then the movie was endorsing what he did."
"It’s one thing if Batman begins the movie as a dark version of himself whom we don’t recognize, but he has to see the error of his ways and remember his better self in the course of the movie. By the end of the movie, he needs to be the Batman we know, and he has to be ready to go and create the Justice League. Otherwise, I said, what was the point?"
Check out the full interview with Eisenberg in the player below.