X-Men veteran Nicholas Hoult is Lex Luthor in Superman: Legacy

Director James Gunn is putting together a cast for his upcoming reboot movie Superman: Legacy. David Corenswet is Clark Kent. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel star Rachel Brosnahan is the fast-talking reporter Lois Lane. And there are a host of minor characters in play, including Edi Gathegi as Mister Terrific, Barry’s Anthony Carrigan as Matamorpho, Isabela Merced as Hawkgirl, Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner the Green Lantern, and María Gabriela de Faría as a villain named the Engineer.

But I don’t think anyone thinks the Engineer will be Superman’s main nemesis. That role will go to Lex Luthor, Superman’s arch-enemy for decades, a bald business tycoon who wants to bring down the Man of Steel at any cost. In the past Lex Luthor has been played by Gene Hackman, Michael Cudlitz, Kevin Spacey, Clancy Brown, Giancarlo Esposito, Michael Rosenbaum, Jesse Eisenberg, and more. Who’s putting on the bald cap this time?

According to The A.V. Club, that would be Nicholas Hoult, who may be the biggest name in the cast so far. He played Beast in a couple of X-Men movies, had a fan favorite role as Nux (also bald, by the way) in Mad Max: Fury Road, and recently starred alongside Nicolas Cage in Renfield, where he played the titular bug-eating vampire lackey. We heard before that Hoult auditioned to play Superman himself in Superman: Legacy, but it sounds like he’s going to play Superman’s greatest villain instead. We’ll see him in action when Superman: Legacy comes out on July 11, 2025.

See Colin Farrell as the Penguin in his new Max show

Speaking of famous actors who will be heavily made over to play DC villains, Empire has a new look at Colin Farrell as the Penguin. Farrell already played Batman’s umbrella-loving nemesis opposite Robert Pattinson in The Batman last year. Now he’s getting a show of his own on Max, appropriately titled The Penguin. Take a look:

To be fair, I have no idea if The Penguin will lean into the character’s canonical preoccupation with umbrellas, which shows up in some adaptations and doesn’t in others; as with Lex Luthor, there have been a lot of interpretations of the Penguin over the years. In The Batman, the Penguin was played pretty straight as a mob boss. But if they want to toss in an umbrella helicopter I won’t complain.

The Penguin will air on Max sometime in 2024. The Batman: Part II will be along sometime after that.

Suicide Squad director David Ayer advises everyone to “please chill” about the “Ayer Cut”

One more DC hit for the road: remember when Zack Snyder released his movie Justice League in 2017, and no one liked it, and then he started talking about a “Snyder Cut” version, and people demanded to see it, and then the studio actually released the four-hour Snyder Cut as Zack Snyder’s Justice League on Max in 2021? That was wild. It also increased interest in a similar director’s cut for David Ayer’s 2016 film Suicide Squad, which also wasn’t well-received. As with the Snyder Cut, Ayer has said there there exists an “Ayer cut” of his movie which “plays much better than the studio release.” According to Ayer, James Gunn — who is now in charge of all things DC at the movies in addition to directing films like Superman: Legacy — has “told me it would have it’s time to be shared.”

That hasn’t materialized, and some fans are apparently getting impatient. “[Ayer] is never going to see his cut released while Gunn is there,” wrote one person on X. “He really fell for Gunn’s lie. should’ve stood by those that defended him and had asked for his cut to be part of the conversation to begin with.”

Ayer replied to that comment with a bucket of cold water. “I absolutely can’t wait to see Gunn’s Superman,” he wrote, trying to tamp down on any suggestion of tension between himself and Gunn. “I have to say this. Gunn is the bravest man in Hollywood these days. He’s taking charge of the hardest ship to Captain in this industry. We make movies. We are entertainers. Not elected officials leading a nation. Everyone please chill.”

“Everyone please chill.” On the internet. We can dream, David, we can dream.

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