Who knew the bullied little kid from About a Boy might grow up to be Superman’s greatest nemesis? Deadline reports this week that Nicholas Hoult is being lined up to portray Lex Luthor in James Gunn’s forthcoming Superman: Legacy, and I must confess I have no idea how to feel about this one.
Hoult has developed into a fascinating character actor with fine comic chops, and it is beginning to look as if he may be with us long after his boyish good looks have faded – a 21st-century equivalent of Terence Stamp or Christopher Lee, rather than just the latest handsome Brit to make it big in Hollywood. His Peter III of Russia was an unexpectedly multilayered, bloodthirsty narcissist-sociopath teddy bear in the sadly cancelled The Great. And indeed, he was once in the running to play Superman.
