How Smallville shaped Lex Luthor’s role in Superman (2025)

Superman (2025) has already generated a lot of talk in the town. This gives a new movie adaptation of the Man of Steel. However, some commentators and fans have already started hinting at the CW series Smallville as a reference in Lex Luthor's character. This connection is quite thought-provoking because it shows that the continuous portrayals of how a character can pique the audience's interest for a new interpretation.

Superman (2025), penned and directed by James Gunn with Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor, is a part of the fresh DC film saga. Although the motion picture narrates its own tale, such aspects concerning Lex that might be seen to gently acknowledge or refer to Smallville, particularly in the naming and character’s tone.

Whether these connections are deliberate or coincidental, they have managed to create a buzz regarding the cultural impact of the earlier series.

Smallville's cultural impact

Smallville lasted for a decade between 2001 and 2011, and along with that, Clark Kent's youth and Lex Luthor's slow turnaround from ally to antagonist were depicted. One of the most challenging and at the same time, the most impressive modern interpretations, the Lex of Michael Rosenbaum is recognized by most people to be that way, all at once combining ambition and vulnerability along with complexity.

However, if the 2025 movie is presumed to be in a different timeline, Smallville's methodology still has a strong impact on the thoughts about Lex's character and motives formed by the public and critics. The matter is not so much about plot connections but rather the persistent cultural impact that the television series has made.

LuthorCorp: Possible echoes of the TV series

Very certainly one of the biggest topics of discussion on the possible connections between Superman (2025) and Smallville is the company name LuthorCorp.

A word of caution here: The movie has not been made available to the public in its entirety, and there is no confirmation from James Gunn that the name used is a deliberate tribute. Rather, critics and fans alike point to the choice as a possible link to the series and its portrayal of Lex’s family and corporate legacy.

Comparisons between Hoult’s Lex and Rosenbaum’s

Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor in Superman (2025). Some critics have compared Hoult’s performance with that of Michael Rosenbaum on Smallville, referring to the tonal similarities in both interpretations’ method of combining ambition and intelligence with subtle emotional layers.

These comments are subjective: while the commentators point out similarities, there is no confirmed statement from Hoult or Gunn that Rosenbaum’s Lex was the direct influence for the 2025 performance. It is still a critical view rather than a fact.

Why do fans and critics see the connection?

Although there is no official confirmation, the topic of Smallville’s impact on Superman (2025) has many reasons to be discussed:

Audience's perception: The audience who have watched Smallville will think that the new movie is a continuation of the series and will influence their understanding of Lex’s persona and motives.

Cultural impact: Smallville went a long way in making a more complicated Lex Luthor, the new comic-book villain. These character traits still determine the online debates about the character.

Narrative layering: If LuthorCorp is in fact used, it may hint at family legacy or continuity themes, even without being a recognized homage.

This shows that media legacies are one of the factors of audience reception and that they can also be applied to critical interpretation, even in separate narrative universes.

Broader implications

The debate concerning Smallville and Superman (2025) underlines the fact that the character depictions that are most loved and even those that are not so loved are a major factor in the audience's expectations and critics' views.

The new films that do not follow the main continuity of the comics will still be liable for the audience's perception of the characters' depth, motivations, and the choices made in the storyline.

As regards Lex Luthor, Rosenbaum's acting in Smallville is still the standard for many and is also the basis for the discussion of how newer adaptations, such as Hoult's, are critiqued.

It appears that Superman (2025) will not have any connections with the Smallville series; nevertheless, commentators and fans have started pointing out some similarities in the character of Lex Luthor already happening, among these are the possible presence of LuthorCorp and the echoes of the previous portrayals in terms of the tonal quality.

These factors indicate that Smallville is still a strong influencer in the public perception of Lex Luthor and, even more, they show that the series's cultural impact is still very much alive in the modern interpretations of Steel's most famous antagonist.

One can cut through the debate over Lex Luthor's still powerful presence in Smallville without overstating the confirmed information about the 2025 movie by making a clear division between facts and speculations.