A short history of Warner Bros trying to adapt Lex

The Gene Hackman portrayal of Lex Luthor still remains the best one to date (even if Kevin Spacey did his best in the failed Superman Returns reboot). Making use of oftentimes considered convoluted plots, the character actually managed to pose a serious (albeit not direct) threat to what Superman stood for.

And Warner Bros attempted to change that on several occasions. In other words, the studio wanted to make Lex Luthor a physical threat for the Man of Steel. But while in the comics the villain uses a super powerful Mech suit to lay a beating on his nemesis (suit which was rumored to be featured in Batman v Superman also), the studio tried different approaches.

For example, the failed Tim Burton Superman Lives was supposed to have Lex Luthor merging with Brainiac (which was also rumored to be the big baddie uniting the Justice League in the DCEU) into a being called either Luthiac either Lexiac "“ maybe it is better this didn't happen.

Then J. J. Abrams also wrote a script for a reboot, called Superman Flyby, which is a pretty interesting (though odd) title. While several elements from this script were eventually used in Man of Steel (for example, elements concerning the politics of Krypton, as well as a similar villainous plot), what seemed to most interesting was Lex's backstory.

Superman Flyby was supposed to have a geeky Lex (which is nothing new, apparently), obsessed with UFOs. His main focus would have been on a crashed Kryptonian ships, which was supposed to be revealed as being his in the end of the movie.

As you can see, there were at least two instances in which Warner Bros wanted to revamp Lex "“ and the latter seems the most interesting one, especially since Zack Snyder dressed Superman as a Jedi and shot Stormtroopers being arrested by the Gotham PD.