James Gunn's DC Universe Casts Marvel And DC Veteran Sean Gunn As The New Maxwell Lord
Sean Gunn, who audiences may know from his performance as the Ravager pirate Kraglin from writer/director James Gunn's "Guardians of the Galaxy" franchise, has reunited with his older brother once again and joined the growing cast of the new DC Universe. According to Deadline, Sean Gunn will play Maxwell Lord, the DC Comics villain previously played by Pedro Pascal in Patty Jenkins' "Wonder Woman 1984." It's unclear if Lord will have a cameo role in James Gunn's "Superman: Legacy," but Deadline says the character will at least be referenced in the background of that movie and will appear in future DC projects. Will Sean be able to bring a similar level of goofiness to the role, or does James have something else in mind for this character? More on that in a minute.
While I typically like Sean Gunn as an actor (he was truly hilarious as the deranged Weasel in "The Suicide Squad," and he's played more reserved roles in things like "Gilmore Girls"), I'm kind of hoping he doesn't pop up in "Superman: Legacy," because that cast is getting awfully crowded. David Corenswet is playing Clark Kent/Superman, Rachel Brosnahan is Lois Lane, Nicholas Hoult is Lex Luthor, and Skyler Gisondo is Jimmy Olsen, which are all characters you'd expect to see in a Superman story. But unlike the majority of other solo Superman projects, this film is set in a world in which superheroes already exist, so we're also going to see Nathan Fillion as a Green Lantern named Guy Gardner, Isabela Merced as Hawkgirl, María Gabriela de Faría as The Engineer, Anthony Carrigan as Metamorpho, and Sara Sampaio as Lex Luthor's assistant, Eve Tessmacher, among others. That's a lot of characters for one movie, and Maxwell Lord would add yet another variable into the equation.
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In "Wonder Woman 1984," Pascal's Maxwell Lord was an over-the-top parody of 1980s businessmen, a clear Donald Trump analog with goofy hair and a charisma that somehow allowed him to hold power over the masses. Personally, I'm hoping James Gunn goes back to the drawing board with the character and imagines him as closer to his original comics incarnation, which is tonally different from Pascal's take. In his earliest appearances, Max Lord is a businessman responsible for helping to form the Justice League behind the scenes, only for it to be revealed that he was actually under the control of a computer program that had dastardly intentions of world domination. Sounds like an opportunity for James Gunn to explore the hot-topic issue of artificial intelligence, should he be interested in going down that path. I'm guessing if this is the approach, audiences wouldn't see the reveal of the computer controlling Lord until at least one more movie into the new DC Universe, since this first film is introducing audiences to James Gunn and Peter Safran's new rebooted universe on the big screen (and dealing with a mind-controlling A.I. as a possible subplot in your first movie out of the gate feels like...a lot).
As usual, there are loads of stories Gunn and company could pull from when building the future of this character (including a moment where he murders one hero by shooting him in the head at point-blank range, if James wants to get really dark in the future), so expect Maxwell Lord to stick around as a significant figure in the DCU for many phases to come.
"Superman: Legacy" flies into theaters on July 11, 2025.