Sean Gunn is part of a fairly small club of actors who have starred in both the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DC Universe on screen, but according to the “Guardians of the Galaxy” star, it’s a bit hard to compare the two superhero franchises.
Gunn made his MCU debut as Kraglin in his brother James Gunn’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” films. Sean then went on to play Weasel in DC’s “The Suicide Squad,” also written and directed by his brother.
And, though both DC and Marvel own the superhero movie landscape, Gunn told TheWrap at FanExpo Chicago that coming into each franchise at different times in their histories made a difference for him.
“I came into the whole process of working at Marvel once the machine was kind of already up and running smoothly and doing well. DC, I’ve done ‘Suicide Squad,’ but now they’re kind of overhauling it, and it’s new ever since my brother took over as head of the studio,” he explained. “It’s sort of been a new process for them. So it would be, it’s really kind of true, like trying to compare apples and oranges.”
James Gunn and Peter Safran took over as co-CEOs of DC Studios in October of 2022 and are currently executing their vision for a rebooted, interconnected DC universe. Gunn wrote and directed a new “Superman” movie that hits theaters next year, but the first piece of canon DC Studios content from Gunn and Safran is the animated series “Creature Commandos,” in which Sean Gunn stars.
Sean Gunn noted that there is one overarching similarity between Marvel and DC for him, that made working both much easier and much more familiar.
“Underneath it all, working with my brother is more similar than it is different to other things,” he said. “So the fact that I was working with James in Marvel and James in DC makes it actually — there’s a lot more similarities in terms of process.”
Sean Gunn is next set to appear in both “Creature Commandos” and “Superman” next year. At the same event, Sean Gunn told TheWrap that his take on Maxwell Lord in “Superman” won’t be based on any live-action portrayals fans have seen before.
“It’s all from written materials with things that we figure we’re looking at,” he teased.
“Creature Commandos” hits Max this December, and “Superman” will release in theaters on July 11, 2025.