Thursday
02Oct2008
Kevin Spacey Back as Lex Luthor?
Thursday, October 2, 2008 at 11:09PM
Well, this is an interesting little blurb. In a feature
article in
The Independent,
Kevin Spacey
addresses the not-so-nuanced differences between acting for the stage and for
the screen. As you may know, Spacey has been the artistic director of the
legendary Old Vic theatre in London for a few years, so the Oscar winner is more
than qualified to speak on that subject. The typically outspoken Spacey was
unsurprisingly pointed.
"That may not go down so well with the producers of the follow-up to Superman Returns, who will be paying him big bucks to reprise his role as Lex Luthor next year."Really? Lex Luthor would be back? In a way, this makes me happy, because Spacey's a great villain, I thought he was the best thing about Superman Returns, although I think he should embrace the chance to hone and shape that character a little more, because...well, he wasn't Gene Hackman. No offense. But on the other hand, I thought Warner Bros. and DC Comics were going to blow up the Superman franchise where it stood. Of course, one line in one newspaper doesn't prove anything, particular when it comes to movie casting, so take it with a grain of salt. Then again, it's not like this is some weekly free insert that comes with your Wednesday grocery store circular. I am torn by the idea, though. As much as Luthor is so inexorably linked with The Man of Steel, he does kind of remind us of the first movie, which is something the studio clearly doesn't want.
Reader Comments (2)
Smallville is finally ending, lets turn that into the restart for superman.
"Spacey's a great villain, I thought he was the best thing about Superman Returns"
No way. Totally disagree. Spacey was absolutely terrible as Lex Luthor. I, and many others I know, just couldn't stand watching him in Superman Returns (he was just one of a billion things wrong with that movie). He was as miscast as Kate Bosworth (the worst Lois Lane in history). Bringing back Spacey as Lex Luthor just totally goes against the whole idea of "rebooting" the franchise. If Spacey's coming back then they may as well just continue with the rest of the old cast and crew - and who really wants that to happen? Certainly not me.
The reboot needs to get rid of the entire cast and crew from Superman Returns. We don't need Spacey, Bosworth and we can certainly get rid of Bryan Singer and his Jesus fixation. I just feel sorry for Brandon Routh - he looked good in the role of Clark Kent/Superman but was given bad material to work with and now he seems to have been blamed for Superman Returns' crapness which isn't fair at all as it was all down to bad writing, wrong director and a lot of miscasting. Part of the reason that the Superman franchise is failing (besides the fact that Bryan Singer is crap at making Superman movies) is because of it's overuse of Lex Luthor. There's a whole world of villains and non-Luthor stories they could use for the big-screen. They could even use some imagination and create their own if the writers and producers had any guts. But if they really are going to use Luthor then they should seriously consider a big screen follow-up to Smallville instead and bring back Michael Rosenbaum who, in my opinion, has been the best Lex Luthor we've had since Hackman and Shea. Spacey doesn't come close to any of the others who have played the part.
We want to see Superman take on super villains with super powers, fight giant robots and go to other worlds. We don't want the same old Lex Luthor scenario that every other Superman movie apart from Superman III has been. Bring back Zod, bring in Doomsday, the Toyman, Darkseid, Brainiac, Bizarro, etc, etc...