Could Jesse Eisenberg have almost played Riddler in Batman V Superman?

Critics are divided over Jesse Eisenberg’s portrayal of Lex Luthor in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The Social Network star has been perceived as merely replaying his iteration of Mark Zuckerberg as opposed to depicting a criminal mastermind like his predecessors Gene Hackman and Kevin Spacey.

However, imagine if Eisenberg appeared in the film, but in a different role. Director Zack Snyder confirmed recently that Jesse Eisenberg first auditioned for a smaller role. Now, new information suggests that this other character was probably The Riddler.

Producer Charles Roven won’t confirm who Eisenberg auditioned for – but he does admit that it was for a cameo role. Last week, it was confirmed that both the Joker and Riddler had been cut from the Batman v Superman script and, considering we know that Jared Leto wound up with Clown Prince of Crime role, it’s safe to assume that Eisenberg was going for Riddler.

“We don’t want to talk about what the role was. But it was more like a cameo. But he was so good in the little thing that he did, it was really a conversation that we started to talk about. It would be great to ‘contemporarise’ Lex. Make him different from the Lexes that we’ve seen in the past. But still also make him believable. And we felt that Jesse was a good choice.”

Snyder previously said this about cutting both villains out of the film: “The Joker and The Riddler both came close to being in this movie. We talked about the possibility of putting them in. [Screenwriter]Chris Terrio and I talked about it a lot and felt that their mythological presence is felt in the movie and that’s cool, but I didn’t want to get my eye too far off the ball because I needed to spend the time, frankly, with Batman and Superman to understand the conflict.”

So, was Jesse Eisenberg supposed to cameo as The Riddler with the role to possibly expand in later films? It certainly seems like that’s the case.

“I can’t discuss that with you,” Roven said.

Now that Eisenberg is playing Luthor, it’s impossible that we’ll see him as The Riddler so, knowing that, who do you think would be good in the role most recently played on the big screen by Jim Carrey in Batman Forever?

Source: Squareeyed