Ever since Joss Whedon took over ‘Justice League’ in the wake of Zack Snyder leaving for personal reasons, people have wondered when we would really feel the weight of the change of directors. I firmly believe now may be the time, and I am not entirely sure how I feel about it.
According to a new tweet from Batman-News.com, it seems that after the first few test screenings of ‘Justice League,’ Joss Whedon has decided not only to greatly reduce the number of scenes featuring Darkseid in the movie but also to completely cut out the character of Lex Luthor:
Batman News can confirm that the current cut of #JusticeLeague does NOT include Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor scenes pic.twitter.com/MvEp8O0EIt
— Batman-News.com (@BatmanNewsCom) September 20, 2017
So the good part of this is, if there is one thing that can drag down a superhero movie, it is too many villains. And having Steppenwolf, Darkseid and Lex Luthor all in one movie with major roles would have been difficult to balance, especially for a franchise that still has yet to gain its footing. Plus, Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor had mixed reviews following ‘Batman V Superman,’ and it is not like he was that physical of a threat, so I doubt his loss will result in any lost action scenes or direct confrontations with our heroes, especially if, as rumored, most of his scenes would have involved his escape from Arkham Asylum after recruiting the help from the likes of Deathstroke.
The bad news though, is that Luthor’s role in the plot might have been more story driven, and this might indicate that ‘Justice League’ might have just taken a turn into becoming 2 hours of action and violence, throwing out any plots or characters that don’t lead to another action set-piece. Plus, it seems as though his whole potential B-Story of breaking out of prison using Deathstroke was there to help set up Deathstroke in the standalone ‘The Batman’ film, and cutting all this out could be another sign that Joe Manganiello‘s Deathstroke truly is out of the next Batman film.
What are your thoughts on Lex Luthor being out of the film? Will it be weird to see this major player in the DCEU removed so quickly from the major proceedings? Is this an indication that they might go another direction with the Luthor’s in the future? Feel free to share any theories you might have on the matter in the comments below!
