Nicholas Hoult reported to play Lex Luthor in Superman: Legacy

Actor Nicholas Hoult has been chosen to play the evil Lex Luthor in James Gunn’s Superman: Legacy, Deadline reported. As per the report, Hoult will co-star with Rachel Brosnahan and David Corenswet, who are set to play Superman and Lois Lane.

Deadline also reported that María Gabriela de Faría will portray The Engineer, an antagonist in the upcoming film. Additionally, James Gunn has hinted on social media that there might be more casting surprises shortly. James Gunn’s Superman: Legacy is set to hit the big screens on July 11, 2025.

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If Nicholas Hoult gets finalized as Lex Luthor, Superman: Legacy's trio will be complete

Nicholas Hoult, who was originally up for the part of Man of Steel himself in the James Gunn film, has now reportedly been cast as Lex Luthor, Superman's archenemisis. This comes as one of the biggest new casting announcements since the SAG-AFTRA strike. While a deal isn't final yet, the talks have been going on since before the strike started.

If the reports turn out to be true, then Hoult will be the newest of a select few actors to play Superman's greatest adversary in a live-action adaptation. Also, he would join the likes of Gene Hackman, who played Luthor in the Christopher Reeve-starring original Superman films, Kevin Spacey, who portrayed the bald maniac in Brandon Routh's Superman Returns, and Jesse Eisenberg, who played a version of the character alongside Henry Cavill's Man of Steel in the DCEU.

Nicholas Hoult has portrayed comic characters before, like Beast in the X-Men franchise. Per Deadline, he would star with Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane and David Corenswet as Superman. Others joining him will be Edi Gathegi as Mister Terrific, Anthony Carrigan as Metamorpho, Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner, Isabela Merced as Hawkgirl, and María Gabriela de Faría as the Engineer.

As James Gunn has also teased, there will undoubtedly be more announcements in the upcoming weeks. And since production for Superman: Legacy is scheduled to start in January, many more roles are still to be revealed, so fans can expect a lot of surprises.

In 1940's Action Comics No. 23, the Superman team of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster introduced Lex Luthor. From the 1960s until the mid-1980s, he was portrayed as a selfish, arrogant, and crazy scientist. Since the middle of the 1980s, he has been increasingly frequently portrayed as LexCorp's power-hungry CEO and one of the smartest and greatest supervillains of all time.

He claims to be against Superman because he sees him as a threat to mankind, but in truth, he envies Superman's stature and power, which motivates him to be the Man of Steel's archnemesis.

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On July 11, 2025, Superman: Legacy will be released in cinemas. It will come after the animated series Creature Commandos, which is scheduled to premiere on Max in 2024 and will serve as the first chapter for the new DCU. The movie will function as the first major live-action picture of the recently formed DCU, which Gunn and Peter Safran conceived.