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It feels like we've been seeing photos and clips of John Cena as Peacemaker in James Gunn's The Suicide Squad for years at this point. Now that the movie has finally been out for a while, it's clear his portrayal was worth the wait. The movie is an R-rated, maniacal, bloody massacre of fun—and Cena's super-committed performance as the brutal, darkly-hilarious Peacemaker ("I cherish peace with all my heart," he says in one early scene. "I don't care how many men, women, and children I need to kill to get it.") is one of the big reasons why. If you loved his character, we have even more good news: Peacemaker will return in an 8-part spinoff series on HBO Max this January.
We've known for a while that Cena is a deeply-gifted comic actor. His performances in movies like Trainwreck, Sisters, and Blockers all ask a lot of him, and each time he's been absolutely up to the task. In The Suicide Squad, Cena gets paired with a writer/director in James Gunn who knows how to perfectly bring that comedic talent into equilibrium with Cena's obvious action-star bonafides. After all, we saw how well Gunn used Dave Bautista in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, so it seems like they were a match made in heaven here.
The forthcoming Peacekeeper series was written entirely by Gunn himself, who said normally he would've taken a break between The Suicide Squad and his next project, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (and the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special), but, well, he had nothing better to do with his time this past year. "Normally I would have been taking more of a break in this space but it’s COVID, I’m stuck at home, so I wrote a TV series," he wrote in a September 2020 Tweet.
So, uh, yeah! If you enjoyed Cena in The Suicide Squad, there's more on the way directly to your TV screen. Or laptop. Or phone. Whatever floats your boat.
The first trailer for the show came out on December 3. But on New Years Day, HBO Max released an official Red Band trailer for Peacemaker, and gave us even more information on where the series plans to go. In what appears to be his adventures as a violent vigilante post-Suicide Squad, Peacemaker joins a ragtag crime-fighting team who all seem to...really not like him.
With the tagline "Give peace a chance," it looks like Peacemaker has to prove himself as more than just a guy with a strange moral code and no filter. Plus, in signature James Gunn fashion, there's going to be explosions, comedy, and superhero antics reminiscent of his other unforgettable DC and Marvel projects. Back in 2021, HBO Max also released a first glimpse at the series in the form of an exclusive clip shared to YouTube.
The clip, captioned "He's got the looks, the car, and the best sidekick ever -- all in the name of peace," shows Peacemaker meeting up at a diner for some grub with the team that Amanda Waller placed him with in the credits scene of The Suicide Squad. Peacemaker shows up in full costume, in his striped, patriotic car, with a pet eagle—named "Eagley," he reveals—and is meet with some good old fashioned ball-busting ribbing. The show clearly is leaning heavily into the comedy that Gunn and Cena have established with the character (and maybe leaning a bit away from his whole murderous traitor thing, for the time being at least).
If you want more of a behind-the-scenes look, or, most likely, the first glimpse at anything coming down the pipeline, it's going to be a good idea to keep your eyes on Gunn's Instagram too. He's very, very active, and always sharing all sorts of stuff that's fun for fans. His Twitter ain't bad either. In short? Watch this space.
Peacemaker will hit HBO Max on January 13, 2022.
Yes! A first look photo was officially released in Entertainment Weekly.
In the EW piece, Gunn explained that he had decided to kill Peacemaker off in The Suicide Squad movie but then did something he usually hates: added a post-credits scene to bring the character back from the dead. "I did exactly the thing I hate when other filmmakers do [it]," he said. "But I did it! I'll have to live with the repercussions, which is the most incredible TV show people will ever see."
He also teased a new sidekick for Peacemaker, named Vigilante (set to be played by Freddie Stroma). Like Peacemaker, this is a character with a deep comic history who's not quite as well known as some other DC counterparts like, say, Aquaman or Superman. This is exciting—it's the kind of semi-obscure pop culture canon that Gunn has thrived with going back to Guardians of the Galaxy.
Let's get the obvious out of the way first: of course the lead of Peacemaker will be the man, the myth, the legend himself, John Cena. The entire cast of The Suicide Squad came to play, but Cena particularly showed off some badass range with hilarious moments and a really well-played heel turn. It's hard to imagine anyone not excited to see more of this character.
Also included in the cast, fairly obviously from the credits scene, are Steve Agee and Jennifer Holland, both reprising their roles from The Suicide Squad.
From there, the cast also includes Orange Is The New Black star Danielle Brooks, Terminator 2: Judgement Day villain Robert Patrick, Harry Potter actor Freddie Stroma playing the character Vigilante, and Nigerian-British actor Chukwudi Iwuji.
As we've mentioned above, James Gunn himself wrote all eight episodes and directed five of them. The other three episodes are directed by veterans in their own right. One of them is helmed by Jody Hill, who's most famous for his collaborations with Danny McBride (including Eastbound and Down and The Righteous Gemstones). That's a solid indicator that Peacemaker will 100% keep the humor that we loved in The Suicide Squad. The other directors are Brad Anderson (who directed Christian Bale in The Machinist, as well as episodes of shows like Boardwalk Empire and The Wire) and Rosemary Rodriguez (who's helmed episodes of The Good Wife and The Walking Dead)
The spinoff is expected to tell Peacemaker's origin story, likely through flashbacks. We say likely because, as anyone who watched The Suicide Squad and stuck around for the movie's post-credits scene knows, the series is directly set up right then and there.
In that post-credits scene, we see John Economos (Steve Agee) and Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), both of whom have been working with/alongside/against (?) Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) for the duration of the movie walking through a hospital wing before they look through a window for our big reveal: Peacemaker is alive! Apparently he was found in the rubble and everyone was shocked his heart was still beating (as were the viewers, who saw him get shot in the neck by Bloodsport (Idris Elba) not much earlier).
Economos and Harcourt discuss Peacemaker's heroics (or lack thereof) with the doctor, and reveal that they know what's happening. "Waller knows we double-crossed her, and she's getting back at us by saddling us with this douchebag," he says.
It's at this point that we get our first real hint at what the Peacemaker series is all about. The doctor asks what the two want him for. "Just to save the fucking world, that's all." Harcourt says. Fade to black.
It'll be an interesting ride to follow, after seeing Peacemaker's fairly villainous turn in The Suicide Squad. This will 100% be an anti-hero story, and hopefully it maintains the same level of obscene, often comic intensity as in the movie—and with Gunn writing the whole series, we're confident that it will.
