After been denied Bane, Dave Bautista sets his sights on being the DCU’s Lex Luthor instead

Even though having friends in high places is supposed to give you an advantage in Hollywood, not even the presence of close friend and regular collaborator James Gunn at the helm of the DCU could allow Dave Bautista to fulfill his long-held dream of playing Bane.

Admittedly, the actor came clean about the fact he’s not exactly in the best position at 54 years old to tackle an intensely physical villain that may require him to hang around the franchise for years, but he hasn’t wasted a second in overcoming that disappointment to set his sights on a new role.

In fact, he’s telling anyone who’ll listen that he wants to be Lex Luthor, as he confirmed in an interview with IndieWire.

“I have to clear it up because there was some misunderstanding that James Gunn had turned me down for the part or didn’t want me for the part, and that’s not at all even close to the truth. We actually talked about Bane and my hopes for playing Bane long before he even took over DC Studios. But someone mentioned something on Instagram I saw tonight, and they said, ‘Just hear me out, but Dave Bautista as Lex Luthor’ and I thought that was really interesting.”

So I don’t know man, I may make a call to James and see if they got anybody in mind, but that is more appealing to me at this point of my life and my career than playing Bane. You know, I just turned 54 last week and playing Bane, I think they need to start with someone younger and someone fresher and someone who could physically, you know, take on that part. With confidence, I couldn’t do it right now, and I would never do an injustice to a character like that, that means so much to the DC fans or the superhero fans in general and myself. So I just wouldn’t do it.”

To be honest, Bautista would make for a phenomenal Lex Luthor. We’ve seen several iterations of Superman’s arch-nemesis in the past, and while there’s no offense intended to any of them, we haven’t seen a spin on the chrome-domed evil billionaire that looks like he could kick your ass. Who happens to be writing the upcoming reboot? James Gunn, of course, so we definitely wouldn’t rule it out.