Jesse Eisenberg Not Playing Lex Luthor in Batman v Superman … Well, Not Exactly

In a recent bit of awesome alternate-reality marketing, Batman v Superman‘s Lex Luthor did an interview with Fortune Magazine, and Lex himself tweeted from his official Twitter about it. You’d think that someone as fancy-pants as Lex Luthor would be verified.

However, Batman v Superman‘s Jesse Eisenberg isn’t actually playing Lex Luthor. Well, not exactly. As you can see in the tweet, this “Alexander Luthor Jr.” is the son of the founder of LexCorp. Now, in other versions of the Lex Luthor character, Lex’ father has been either Jules Luthor or Lionel Luthor. There was an Alexander Luthor Jr. in comics, but he was the only hero of Earth 3. And, of course, there was Lex Luthor II, the Lex clone who pretended to be Lex’s adult son after Lex died of cancer caused by Kryptonite.

However, as this Fortune interview reveals, LexCorp was founded by Alexander Luthor Sr., who emigrated from a war-torn nation to become one of the US’s greatest success stories. Eisenberg plays Alexander Luthor Jr., heir to LexCorp, and according to the Fortune piece, “a 31-year-old wunderkind.”

Lex on his father’s business sense (as well as the type of father he was):

Dad named the company after himself ten years before I made my unexpected entrance into his life. But investors seemed to respond to the idea of an adoring father building a legacy for his precious son. He used that to his advantage. It was a good shtick and, whatever else he was, he was a good businessman.

Lex on politics:

[My father] came from a country where the government, in the guise of protector, had absolute control over the citizens. That drove him. I get it. Heck, I’d hate to see that sort of thing happen over here.

It seems that Lex has inherited his father’s views about government (and likely about what the role of a super-powered being from another planet should be).

Lex mentions rival corporations in the interview, including Wayne Enterprises and Kord Industries, but remains confident that LexCorp’s military contracts, which he sees as a necessity:

We live in the most dangerous point of time in all of human history. Statistically speaking, it’s a near certainty that another world-changing crisis is hurtling toward us like a speeding bullet. We have to be ready to defend ourselves. No civilization was ever conquered by having a strong military.

Well, LexCorp is apparently working on a piece of technology designed to aid in US defense, and Luthor has this to say about that:

It’s about safety. This is a product that will protect you, and everyone, from threats you don’t even know about yet. I don’t want to scare anybody… much. But there are a lot of threats out there, and they’re here today.

We’ll likely find out more about this “product,” as well as more about Lex Luthor’s namesake, when Batman v. Superman comes out in March 2016.

(via Newsarama and Polygon, featured mage via Gage Skidmore on Flickr)

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Teresa Jusino

Teresa Jusino (she/her) is a native New Yorker and a proud Puerto Rican, Jewish, bisexual woman with ADHD. She's been writing professionally since 2010 and was a former TMS assistant editor from 2015-18. Now, she's back as a contributing writer. When not writing about pop culture, she's writing screenplays and is the creator of your future favorite genre show. Teresa lives in L.A. with her brilliant wife. Her other great loves include: Star Trek, The Last of Us, anything by Brian K. Vaughan, and her Level 5 android Paladin named Lal.

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