Jesse Eisenberg was seen on the set of Justice League, and even confirmed that he’d appear as Lex Luthor in the movie, but now we know that’s not happening. It really isn’t that big a surprise, since Zack Snyder left the project and Joss Whedon reportedly signed on to reshoot big chunks of the film.
The last time we saw Lex Luthor, he was on the receiving end of a Batman threat in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Apparently, he wasn’t an essential character, though. Since it was possible that Bruce Wayne had something to do with sending Lex to Arkham, it was even more unlikely that he’d appear in Justice League.
We shouldn't forget that Lex possesses some information about Steppenwolf and the armies of Apokolips, as he was the only one who actually saw Darkseid's uncle, and he knew that an invasion was coming. So Snyder may have had bigger plans for Lex in the long run.
The news that Lex wouldn’t appear in Justice League came courtesy of Batman News and followed the film’s first screening. Check out the tweet below:
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
Of course, no source was named, so we can't be certain that Lex won't be in the film. Nonetheless, if the report is accurate, it’s apparent that Whedon changed some threads in the movie by excluding this character.
But that doesn't mean that we won't see Superman's most famous antagonist in future projects. After all, Man of Steel 2 will happen sometime in the near future, and we’re sure that no one would make that film without Lex Luthor.
Justice League will be released on November 17, 2017.