General Zod Forum

Probably the last major role in Zack Snyder's Superman reboot fell into place today, as Michael Shannon was officially cast as General Zod in the film, and Snyder confirmed that he's intended to be the primary villain of the film: 

Meh 

Dude is scary as shit, Revolutionary Road, Board Walk Empireand he is also going to be the IceMan.

Also, enough of LEx Luthor, we don't need him as a villain in this movie or any subsequent movies, he has been done to death

"Oh God..."

hmm, can't say he is my favorite villain in the superman universe, but oh well.

There needs to be a Luthor too! I love Zod, but i feel like there are more major superman villains to use in the movie. 

@Dany said:

"Also, enough of Lex Luthor, we don't need him as a villain in this movie or any subsequent movies, he has been done to death."

He's Superman's Joker. He needs to be there, even if it's just something of a cameo toward the end. Given all of the destruction that a fight between Superman and Zod would cause, it'd be the perfect excuse for him to go public with his hatred of the Superman.

Given that WB is already planning on turning Green Lantern into a trilogy, I can't imagine they wouldn't be thinking the same thing with Superman. As such, setting up Lex Luthor as the villain for the next film makes a lot of sense, even if he really isn't used in Man of Steel. Besides, a large majority of Superman's rouges gallery has ties back to Luthor. As such, not having Luthor means, all you get to throw at Superman are aliens, which would become incredibly uninteresting pretty fast.

The idea of a man standing up to a Superman and the fact that that man thinks he is right is one of the only things about Superman that makes him compelling. Luthor is the ultimate example of how humanity would react to a being like Superman on the negative end, so he's incredibly necessary to make Superman any kind of compelling. Otherwise, he's just an alien punching other aliens through buildings and you just root for him because he's the good one (in the case of Zod) or the human looking one (in the case of every other alien they would really be able to throw at him).

Michael Shannon is a revelation... in Let's Go to Prison!

darn I was hoping for Braniac to be the big bad but this is good to at least its not Lex Luthor

 I was a big fan of the Kevin Spacey Lex Luthor, why not cast him again?

havent we already seen this before. Is it too much to ask for different villians beside zod and luthor. Atleast iits a good actor though.

@Roguebomber:  what other villains does superman have that none fans would recognize  

Did not recognise him in that picture, he looks...young or something!

@Dany said:

"Also, enough of LEx Luthor, we don't need him as a villain in this movie or any subsequent movies, he has been done to death "

Completely agreed. 
Enough of Zod too. You don't see him often but one movie is enough. Metallo, Parasite, Brainiac, Darkseid, Bizarro, even frickin Toyman are more interesting villains. 

I wanted Viggo...

Shannon let out his inner crazy a bit in the movie 13, which everyone should fucking see because its ridiculously intense.

@walkingcarpet:  Yeah I get your sentiment but I am bored to death with him, something more fantastical would have been better but Zod is fine for that

@Dany:  I guess. I think you need a more human villain to ground him though. In the first movie you'll have his parents to make him a character people can identify with, but he can only go back to the farm in Kansas so many times before people stop caring. If you get too fantastical then it makes it hard to really get people to care about the character.

I'm not trying to start an internet argument or anything, I'm just confused as to why people dislike Lex Luthor so much. I get that Gene Hackman's Luthor was goofy and dumb, but I think a more modern take on Luthor could be just as brilliant as Ledger made the Joker in The Dark Knight.

That said, it is a Zack Snyder movie, so it may be asking too much.

They should have gone with a different villain.  Zod's appearance in Superman II is so iconic that they're risking setting up this new Zod for the failure of becoming Zod Light.