8 Things Everybody Has Wrong About Batman V Superman
7. Lex Luthor Isn't Actually Lex Luthor
In the associated press material for Batman v Superman, Lex Luthor is been described as:
"A 31-year-old wunderkind who transformed an aging petrochemical and heavy machinery dinosaur into a tech darling of the Fortune 500."
There's a sense, then, that Zack Snyder is looking to position Luthor as something of a modern Mark Zuckerberg-type character. Not quite the Lex Luthor of the comic canon, right? And yet one major misconception that people seem to be having with regards to Batman v Superman is that Lex Luthor is... well, the Lex Luthor. The filmmakers, after all, have made a major effort to position this version of Luthor as one like we've never seen before. And why would they do that? Why would they go to such lengths to totally re-establish the character? Because Eisenberg's Luthor is the son of Lex Luthor. And no, that's not some crazy rumour or theory taken from the internet; it's a legitimate fact. This has even been proven by way of the official Lex Luthor Twitter account, where one "Alexander Luthor" tweeted the following:
That's right: Batman v Superman will feature a character named Alexander Joseph Luthor Jr., the heir to the Luthor fortune. The actual Lex Luthor died back in the year 2000, apparently. It appears as though they're looking to create a more realistic villain with his own reasons for trying to bring down Superman - not some crazed madman who wants to do it just for the sake of it. Which is assumedly why the filmmakers opted to make this character Luthor's son - in order to clear any tired tropes associated with Superman's nemesis and start from scratch.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
