Nerf Ninja said:
More Lex Luthor? Superman does have other enemies, they do know this don't they?
It's a matter of iconism. When a random person is asked "Name a Superman villian" odds are that they'll name Lex Luthor.
Think about the Batman Reboot for a second: They tried first in Begins with Raj-al-Ghol (or however you spell his name) and the Scarecrow with a modicum of success. Christian Bale was the new Dark Knight; Michael Cane and Gary Oldman were the new Alfred and Jim Gordan; Morgan Freeman was the new Lucius Fox; and Gotham was turned from the near-cartoonish world of the 90s franchise into the dark, gritty realism of the new series that could only be done in Chicago.
That said, the movie really doesn't stand out on it's own in comparison to The Dark Knight. In fact, it feels more like a prequel to The Dark Knight, establishing the majority of backstory for Bruce Wayne, Jim Gordan, and the Batman mythos (the suit, cave, Batsignal, Batmobile, etc.), hammering out the tragic love interest in Rachel Dawes, explaining how the Joker and other future villians first appeared, and set-up the power vaccume left by the Falcone bust. Hell, even "Begins" in the title is usually reserved for prequels, not the first movie.
The Joker, the iconic Batman villian whether your a fan or not, is what set apart The Dark Knight from any other superhero movie in history and will likely be the mark for best villian for decades. This is made almost more ledgendary by the fact that Heath Ledger will (tradgically) not be able to play the character in any later sequel, so the character won't be breaking out of Arkham any time soon.
In a superhero movie, it is the antagonist on the other end of the fight that truly determines whether a film is a success or not. The Lex Luthor that will be in the new movie will definately be far from the Lex Luthor from the old movies (of which I count Returns).
We'll see probably a multi-facseted CEO who "staved the recession through 'solid business practices'" such as maintaining a privately-owned corporation (i.e. no hand in the NYSE) and having a diverse portfolio of industry (think GE). Luthor will probably be less of a straight up villian, but more of the guy who sells his arms to less-than-savory people and gets connected to it via a story by Clark Kent or Lois Lane after an Superman-involved incident in Metropolis. He'll hire a hitman who fails (unless they try something more interesting and have him succeed, which would be even better if Lois Lane is the one killed, sparking a Superman revenge plot) and gets tied to Luthor again. One thing leads to another, but in the end, Luthor will probably have nothing more than a quiet conversation with the Man of Steel and Superman will be forced to back off after reaching a tenuous agreement where each agrees to avoid crossing each other's path. The last image of Luthor will be him sitting at his desk hand resting on his chin pondering his next move, possibly with a smile depending on how the conversation turned out.
If they try a Dark Knight-style movie, it will be far from a happy-ending in the same vein. And, depending on the economy at the time, it would directly relate to the feelings of the audience, where men who commit horible acts within the law are esentially protected while the rest suffer the consequences. This could be a working story.
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