Wait .. it’s not a joke? Seriously? Is there no end of the contempt that some moviemakers have for their source material?
We should have seen where this was going with Man of Steel. The callous rconfiguration of Pa Kent as a bitter old man, the virtual destruction of the Clark Kent secret identity, the inexplicable gender conversion of Jimmy Olsen. It was painfully clear that Christopher Nolan and his minions had no real respect for the source material; they were having way too much fun deconstructing it, just for the hell of it. They weren’t ‘updating’ the material or ‘making it more acceptable to modern audiences.’ They were just messin’ with it ‘cause they could.
Well, judges from the court of public opinion: if you needed more proof, here it is. Jesse Eisenberg, the guy who’s best known for not being Michael Cera, has been chosen to play Lex Luthor.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Zombieland, The Social Network, Now You See Me. He’s not untalented, and in most of his movies he shows a kind of contemptuous intelligence that isn’t unfamiliar to fans of the super-villain. But he’s more Scott Evil than his dad, and if Lex had an evil mini-me version, hey, Eisenberg would be perfect for it.
But Luthor? No. Never.
The casting for this mostly mythical movie project has been surprising at best and baffling at worst. Henry Cavill’s Superman isn’t bad; most folks liked him well enough, even if they didn’t care for the movie. The relatively unknown Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman seems promising. But Ben “Daredevil” Affleck is risky at best; it’s got George “Nipple Batman” Clooney written all over it. Jeremy Irons as Alfred seems to be a return to the Old School Alfred (did anyone really buy the concept of a cockney bulter?). And now…this.
The studios, and in this case Christopher Nolan in particular, seem committed to reinventing the superhero concepts they paid so much to play with. They refuse – even in the fact of Marvel Phase II – to understand that many of us don’t want our comics characters reinvented. We want them fulfilled.
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