Zack Snyder Reveals the DC Comics Character Killed Off in Batman v Superman
And no, I'm not talking about the ending, which is very clearly going to be retconned, as such. No, this particular character is a DC Comics fan favourite who Zack Snyder was unsure of how to fit into the already bulky cast list for Batman v Superman.
Speaking with EW, Snyder revealed that one particular camera-carrying journalist in the early part of the film was in fact Jimmy Olsen, accompanying Lois Lane in a meeting with an African terrorist group.
Olsen is a popular photographer from the Daily Planet and a longtime friend of Clark Kent and Superman. In the comics, that is. Here, the character is an undercover CIA agent who gets a bullet to the head.
"We just did it as this little aside because we had been tracking where we thought the movies were gonna go, and we don't have room for Jimmy Olsen in our big pantheon of characters, but we can have fun with him, right?" Snyder explained.
In addition to the surprisingly 'fun' way in which Jimmy Olsen received the short end of the DC stick, originally Jesse Eisenberg was set to play the role.
"I said, 'I want to do this misdirect and you'd be great. You'd be a great Jimmy Olsen,' And he's like, 'Yeah, that's cool,' and he was being very Jesse in the meeting. Introverted but constantlyy going, 'Okay, I see, uh-huh. So it's sort of a pop-culture redirect, you're gonna do, because of the certain status of an actor..."
This interaction single-handedly convinced Snyder to turn to his producing wife, Deborah Snyder, and option Eisenberg as Lex. This had a chain reaction, whereby the Lex Luthor character was changed completely. Where previously actors like Bryan Cranston were in serious contention for the role, they de-aged the character and fit it in line with Eisenberg.
Source: Slashfilm
