2014 Movie News Archives

February 5, 2014: Casting Lex Luthor for Superman/Batman Movie

Jesse Eisenberg The Hollywood Reporter has published an article examining the decision behind casting Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor in the upcoming Superman/Batman movie, and looks at other actors who were and weren't in the running for the role.

    Warner Bros. toyed with luring a veteran to tackle the role of Lex Luthor in its untitled Superman-Batman film, but the studio ultimately stuck to a next-gen mandate. In fact, newly anointed Lex Jesse Eisenberg (CAA, Felker Toczek) was not the only 30-year-old courted for the role: A source says Girls' Adam Driver was approached to play Superman's nemesis but had a conflict, and Joaquin Phoenix passed.

    The new Lex will skew much younger than Superman Returns' Kevin Spacey (46 at the time) and Superman's Gene Hackman (48) but will be more in line with several recent graphic-novel and TV incarnations, in which he is a childhood friend of the young Man of Steel. With 30-year-old Henry Cavill returning as Superman in the May 2016 release, the actors' ages align. By contrast, Bryan Cranston, whose name emerged last summer as Warners' prototype for the bald nemesis, is 27 years older than Cavill.

    However, multiple sources say Cranston never was approached for the role, nor was 57-year-old Tom Hanks, whose name had been discussed internally.

Read the complete report at The Hollywood Reporter website.

In other news from THR, Warner Bros. announced that 2013 was a profit record-setting year for the movie studio, with the company crossing $5 billion in revenue for the first time. Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said their success in 2013 was due to the box office earnings of films like "Gravity", "Man of Steel" and the latest "Hobbit" films.



2014 Movie News

Listed below are all the Movie News items archived for 2014 organized into various categories:

“Superman/Batman” Movie News:

“Justice League” Movie News: “Man of Steel” Movie News: “Justice League: War” Animated Movie News: “Justice League: Throne of Atlantis” Animated Movie News: LEGO Animated Movie News: Christopher Reeve Movie News: Other Movie News:

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