Taron Egerton Should Play Lex Luthor Not Wolverine Says Matthew Vaughn

Taron Egerton should play Lex Luthor in James Gunn’s Superman: Legacy and not Marvel’s new Wolverine, says Matthew Vaughn who directed the actor in the Kingsman movies.

Vaughn recently appeared on the Happy Sad Confused podcast and talked about the actor as well as his pitch for a Superman movie with Mark Millar.

“I think he’d be better as Lex Luthor,” Vaughn said. “He’d be an amazing Luthor. He shouldn’t be Wolverine. I don’t think he’s right for it. Hugh [Jackman] is brilliant as Wolverine, but I’d go back to the what the comics are… [He’s] a small, grizzly tough guy. Hugh has made it so iconic that whoever’s trying to do Hugh would be buggered. Taron would make an amazing, intelligent villain with depth.”

What are Matthew Vaughn’s Superman ideas?

Regarding the Superman pitch, Vaughn says it would have been a different take and the villains would have been Lex Luthor as the main villain, with Zod and Brainiac after Krypton eventually blows up.

“I would’ve done a modern version of Donner. Our big idea was this twist that Krypton doesn’t blow up,” Vaughn said. “It does, eventually. The dad was right, but he got his timing wrong. When Superman is grown up, suddenly there’s a mass exodus and all hell breaks loose. That was our main idea.”

Back in 2019, Vaughn also released details offering they came up with an idea for a trilogy that would have featured the first movie set entirely on Krypton following Jor-El, the father to Superman.

As Vaughn said above, the big change they would have gone with is that the destruction of Krypton wouldn’t have happened until much later, meaning Superman would have grown up on Krypton but was then sent to Earth as an adult.

Vaughn said though Krypton would have still faced an impending explosion, Superman growing up on Krypton and becoming familiar with Earth would have seen him mature “into an adult before having to reckon with his loyalty to both planets.” That also means he was never raised by the Kents.

Miller also said about their pitch back in 2017, “It was actually a massive, uplifting, hopeful thing. There’s no point doing Superman unless you feel good. You should walk out of ‘Superman’ just feeling like a million dollars. You should feel great after a Superman film. The movie itself was going to be a big, vast fun epic. But ‘Superman’s got to be a laugh, as well.”

James Gunn is now rebooting DC with Superman: Legacy starring David Corenswet as the new Man of Steel. Rumors offer Gunn is casting both Lex Luthor and Brainiac.

Marvel is also rebooting Wolverine in the MCU, with Hugh Jackman first slated to return in Deadpool 3 where it has been said the flick will feature Wolverine Variants including Karl Urban as Wolverine, and Taron Egerton happens to be rumored for an appearance as well.