"He's a great actor. I mean, some might say he's better than David in certain ways, but he just didn't fit the role, and that's why he didn't get that," the director said of Hoult, who plays Lex Luthor in the new movie.

James Gunn’s “Superman” is flying into theaters this month with David Corenswet in the title role and Nicholas Hoult as the villainous Lex Luthor. But that wasn’t the role Hoult auditioned for. The “Nosferatu” and “X-Men” star originally sought the role of Superman but lost out to Corenswet in auditions.

Nicholas Hoult raves about working with ‘wonderful’ Superman co-star David Corenswet at the film’s London premiere. Report by Bangurak. Like us on Facebook at and follow us on Twitter at

A new photo book, with an introduction by James Gunn, offers a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the new Superman, out this July.

“It was just difficult to figure out where I was going to come from with Superman ,” Gunn said speaking to io9 in Los Angeles last week. “And I think that it really started with my dog in a lot of ways. The idea of putting in Krypto, I think, was the fun part for me, because that was something that we hadn’t really seen in a Superman movie.”