What’s the first thing you think of when Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice comes to mind? There are those among us whose mind immediately goes to all the nightmares suggested by a certain container of “Granny’s peach tea,” a plot device designed to show just how depraved the movie’s version of Lex Luthor really is. It’s a WTF moment that lingers… uncomfortably.
Lex Luthor, played by Jesse Eisenberg, isn’t even in the shot. And Eisenberg had nothing to do with the writing of the movie. But the tainted beverage is just another facet of what io9 called at the time “a low-rent Heath Ledger-as-Joker imitation” in a movie that is nobody’s favorite superhero movie but does look better in retrospect thanks to the horrors of Justice League.
Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor skated free of Justice League aside from a post-credit scene, so the actor’s miserable memories of his time in the superhero world are mostly limited to Batman v Superman. After he was awarded a Razzie for Worst Supporting Actor—just a few years after his Best Actor Oscar nomination for The Social Network—he took a long, hard look at his career choices. A decade later, Eisenberg still has thoughts on the experience and credits the fallout from the movie as what inspired him to shift into directing.
“A lot of it just came from fear,” he told Variety. “I couldn’t get into movie studio parts anymore because I had won a Raspberry Award from [being in the] Batman movie … and I saw the trajectory.”
You have to give him credit for understanding immediately what he should not do next. “The industry did not want me to be in a superhero movie, and if you’re smart and self-aware, you learn that quickly … And so the industry tells you what it wants, and if you want a career in the arts, you have to follow the things that you’re being told are liked.”
Though Eisenberg never stopped acting (Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, anybody?), his choice to move behind the camera has paid off. In 2025, he got an Oscar nomination for his screenplay for A Real Pain, which he also directed; his co-star, Kieran Culkin, won Best Supporting Actor. His next directorial effort is The Debut, a musical comedy he also wrote. It stars Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti and hits theaters in December.
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