Nicholas Hoult is making the leap from Marvel to DC, with the X-Men actor being scooped to play the villainous Lex Luthor in DC’s upcoming flagship, Superman: Legacy. The news comes on the back of María Gabriela de Faría being cast as another villain, The Engineer.
Deadline broke the news of Hoult’s casting, but there’s no word on how significant his role in the film will be. However, the British actor is one of the most recognizable names in the cast so far, with credits including Mad Max: Fury Road, Renfield, and The Great beyond his role as young Beast/Hank McCoy in the X-Men movies.
While Superman: Legacy will not be an origin story per se, it will follow a relatively young Clark Kent coming to terms with his heritage and place in the world. James Gunn is slated to direct the film.
Alongside Hoult, perhaps the best-known actor in Superman: Legacy is Firefly’s Nathan Fillion, who will play the Green Lantern, Guy Gardner. Meanwhile, Superman will be played by relative newcomer David Corenswet and Lois Lane be played by Rachel Brosnahan.
Superman: Legacy is widely expected to act as a loose reboot for the DC filmic universe, kicking off in earnest the James Gunn and James Safran era after they took the reins last year. Despite that, the movie isn’t scheduled to hit theaters until July 11, 2025. It is planned as the first of a new series of movies that will ape the MCU model of different ‘chapters’ building to inflection points as part of an eight-to-ten-year plan.
The movie is said to take inspiration from the All-Star Superman run of comics that ran between 2005 and 2008. That series saw the character dying as a result of Lex Luthor’s machinations and how he reacts to his impending doom.
