You guys know I’ve never been much of a fan caster so I’m going to try something different than just throwing a single guy out there for a role in a full cast instead I’m going to focus on a single character and the multiple actors I think could do a good job and have a round table about it. It’s a little off the standard here in FanFic, but I’ve always been an odd guy.
First out of the gate with the new life that’s being breathed into the Superman franchise I want to take a shot at the character who has shared the screen with Supes the most next to Lois Lane; the one and only Lex Luthor. I know, I know a lot of you are saying enough with Lex, but I see Supes as being incomplete without at least the presence of Metropolis’ prince of darkness. He is the ying to Superman’s yang and any other cliché you can think of, but the place just feels empty without him somehow.
Lex has always gotten a raw deal in the previous Superman films, true in the PreCrisis days of the Chris Reeve Superman era Lex was basically a tossup between a mad scientist/criminal genius/flimflam man and your slightly sinister uncle you shy away from on Thanksgiving… what you didn’t have a sligh… screw it. I said I was an odd guy, I got it honest, okay? My point is this Lex was not the Lex most of us grew up with, our Lex was a darker more removed figure than the old Lex. Our Lex was the corporate shark, the brilliant mind whose mental prowess was every bit a match to the physical prowess of Superman. He was an untouchable fiend who despite Superman’s best efforts could be stopped, but never convicted of his deeds. He is a sly, stylish, ruthless, self-serving, evil bastard who wants nothing more than to have the admiration and respect that is lavished upon Superman, but too internally corrupt to even understand why he can’t have it and on the rare occasions he has come close to true greatness his greed and dark nature displace any good that may have come of his efforts. Lex hates Superman because Superman is everything Lex can never be. A hero to the people, gifted with great power and an unwillingness to use that power for his own benefit.
If the new films can give us this kind of Lex then I cannot tell you how happy it will make me. He doesn’t need to be the main villain in every movie, but his presence and threat must be there looming like a remissive cancer, his malignancy threatening to spread again and again unseen under the surface of the greater Metropolis and DC film universe as a whole. He should play the role of an arch enemy to Superman, a corporate rival to Bruce Wayne, a financier and facilitator of evil throughout the spectrum of the DCFU.
Let’s begin at the beginning the Film Lex of my generation, the Oscar award winner the tough as nails everyman, and… the creepy looking uncle thing…. The wigged one, the one and only Gene Hackman.
I love Gene in anything… except the role of Lex Luthor, comical and scene chewing to rival Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face. The ultimate disparity to the PostCrisis John Byrne Lex I was reading in the comics every month. The older I got the less I could watch the three Superman films with him in them.
Next came the 1990’s Bruce Timm Superman and Justice League animated series. Now this was Lex; almost everything I had hoped to see, but never got the chance to. This Lex was a brooding master of evil that seemed to revel in the fact there was one thing he had conquered long before Superman; Lois Lane. He was voiced with a perfect malevolent timber by the resonant growl of the great Clancy Brown.
I loved this Lex and still say that if Chris Nolan doesn’t want to “godfather” the DCFU that DC Entertainment could do a lot worse than to let Bruce Timm have a shot at masterminding how the films all weave together.
Starting in 2002 we saw the young Lex brought to life by Michael Rosenbaum on Smallville.
Again I was and am still not a big fan of Smallville, but the episodes I have seen with him providing the chrome dome were enough to show me the kid had the chops to play a similar version of the animated Lex and I always found him to be the best thing about the show. ***Snuff Chloe***
Lastly we have the 2006 attempt to allow another Oscar winner run wild in all his scenery chewing, “WRRROOONNNGGG!!!” screaming glory; Kevin Spacey.
(Sigh) I think they tried to darken Lex a bit, but were bound by the sequelish parameters Singer was using to forcibly lash Superman Returns to the previous Donner films. Spacey was all over the place, clownish, insane, megalomaniacal to sheepish, mad genius to prison yard thug with a shank… too much.
So who do I think could pull off this new incarnation of one the most often seen villains in Comic Book Movie genre. My hope being that he will be a faithful adherent of the Byrne Lex and a mix of that sly roguishness the animated series captured.
Josh Brolin
He has the acting chops and the perfectly formed head, kidding, to pull off a Lex who could be both intellectually threatening and also somewhat physically imposing. He has that tough guy swagger and a gleam in those eyes that always says the wheels are turning trying to figure it all out. I think he could really pull Lex off and do the comics proud.
Clive Owen
Switching gears he has the voice and the smoothness to pull off the playboy angle of Lex. Physically he's a tall lean guy, but that works for him making the idea that he would be three steps ahead of you anyway if things went bad…. Also a quintessential Lex attribute, and let’s face it I don’t know what it is, but British actors just make the best villains to we American audiences. Maybe it’s a rebelling against daddy thing, you remind us of authority we so rankle under.
John Hamm
This guy oozes Lex, it may just be the sixties alpha male thing from Mad Men, inversely he would also make a damn good older version of Superman. A true double threat.
Ralph Fiennes
I have seen him banded about on the boards as a possible, but of all the people on my list he is here the most tenuously. I’m beginning to feel like he is over used as a villain. But could Tom Riddle be Lex Luthor? Sure I think he could pull it off, but could also go a little over the top with it.
Billy Zane
I like Billy Zane, so sue me. Can he overact? Ooh yeah, he could chew up a scene with the best of them (Titanic), but with the proper grounding and direction the guy could pull off the suave animated style Lex with an ease and grace and voice and physical build that could truly be jaw dropping. And he has the perfect head and glare to pull off Lex.
Jude Law
Like Hamm today, Jude Law was once a name we heard sounded around for the role of Superman back in the day. Again he has that similar quality of Owen and Zane. I like him, but like Zane the weak link can be his acting and that is the key thing. I want to believe the actor is Lex, can Law pull that off? I can only give a definite maybe.
Last but not least is my “out of left field choice.” Bruce Willis
Bruce could bring a streetwise undercurrent and toughness to Luthor. After all Lex was brought up rather hard as I understand it, in the comics at least. Willis is also an actor that I hesitate to throw out there because again, depending on how the actor relates to the character determines how they play the character and if Willis focuses on the crime boss line more than the evil Bill Gates we could get a very stilted Lex ala Spacey.
Other names I threw about but due to the fact that I’m already posting what looks like a friggin’ thesis decided not to over burden you guys with were Daniel Craig and Jason Isaacs, but I couldn’t even sell myself on them enough to really commit.
So there you go guys; my first fan cast in my own long winded style. So what do you think? Who are your favorites on this list and who are some great possibles I forgot? Who and what are your perfect Lex?