Sean Gunn Teases His Approach to the DCU’s Maxwell Lord

James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Universe is about to be in full swing, with the first cinematic entry hitting the big screen next summer with Superman. The larger franchise has already confirmed the casting of a number of surprising roles, including Gunn’s brother Sean Gunn as the businessman Maxwell Lord. While Gunn’s take on Maxwell Lord is not confirmed to appear in Superman, set photos from the production hint at his company, Lord Tech, having a pivotal role in the superhero community. In a recent interview with The Wrap, Gunn teased that when we do meet his take on Lord, it will be rooted in the comics in a distinct way.

“I can’t talk too much about it,” Gunn revealed. “I can say that my my brother James and I did discuss… what reference materials from the canon were relevant to to my process. I love doing my own music.”

“I can’t say that much, other than we did talk about about relevant materials, and we discussed the character in detail on before I dove in,” Gunn continued. “We referenced no live performances of the character. It’s all from written materials with things that we figure we’re looking at.”

Who Is DC’s Maxwell Lord?

Created by Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis, and Kevin Maguire in 1987’s Justice League #1, Maxwell Lord IV is originally introduced as the secret benefactor of the Justice League International roster, who hopes to reimagine the superhero team on a global scale. Unbeknownst to the team, Lord was being mentally manipulated by an alien computer program, eventually breaking free and establishing himself as more of a shady businessman. 

Lord later made a heel turn into being a supervillain by the events of Infinite Crisis, which revealed that he had been secretly stealing intel on the entire superhero community to use against them. The event began with him brutally murdering Ted Kord, and ended with Lord’s neck being snapped by Wonder Woman, and the footage being broadcast throughout the world. He eventually was resurrected, and has continued to be both an adversary and a suspicious ally of the DC Universe. He was previously portrayed in live action by Peter Facinelli in The CW’s Supergirl, and Pedro Pascal in the film Wonder Woman 1984.

The DC Universe Slate

The first chapter of DC Studios’ DC Universe slate will include 2025’s Superman, 2026’s Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, as well as the currently-undated movies The Brave and the Bold, Swamp Thing, and The Authority. On the television side, the DC Universe will launch an animated Creature Commandos series, the sophomore season of Peacemaker, as well as future shows Waller, Booster Gold, Lanterns, and Paradise Lost. An animated Jurassic League movie and a live-action Teen Titans movie are also reported to be in the works, but neither have been officially confirmed by DC Studios.

“A lot of people think it’s going to be Marvel 2.0, and definitely I learned a lot of stuff at Marvel. I think that we have a lot of differences,” Gunn explained in January of 2023. “We are telling a big, huge, central story that is like Marvel, except for, I think that we’re a lot more planned out than Marvel from the beginning because we’ve gotten a group of writers together to work that story out completely. But we’re also creating a universe that is like Star Wars, where there’s different times, different places, different things, or Game of Thrones, where characters are a little bit more morally complex.” 

Superman will be released exclusively in theaters on July 11, 2025.