Warning: this article contains spoilers for Peacemaker episode eight.
Now that the highly secretive season one finale of Peacemaker has dropped on HBO Max, showrunner James Gunn is breaking down how those certain high-profile cameos came to be.
Near the end of the episode, after John Cena’s Peacemaker and other members of the Task Force X team successfully take down the space cow that was feeding the body-snatching butterfly aliens, some members of the Justice League showed up — but it too little, too late.
Wonder Woman, Superman, The Flash, and Aquaman appeared on the scene, though only the latter two actually featured the actors who play the heroes. Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen and Jason Momoa’s Arthur Curry both showed up for reals for the cameo, while Wonder Woman and Superman remained merely in silhouette on the darkened farm field.
Gunn explained in an interview with Deadline that due to already knowing Momoa for a while now and being friends with Aquaman producer Peter Safran, that’s how he was able to land the Game of Thrones star’s cameo.
“We knew Jason was probably going to do it very early on. Ezra came in as more of a surprise. I found out through a couple of friends that Ezra liked my films, and so then I connected with him and asked him to do it, as well. So, yeah, we were just lucky with the two of them.”
Something sort of refreshing for superhero movie fans is the fact that Peacemaker, as well as Gunn’s 2021 film The Suicide Squad, brings R-rated humor and content to the world of the so-called DC Extended Universe. As such, the normally PG-13 hero Aquaman was able to cut loose with some foul-mouthed quips in the cameo. Specifically, Aquaman says, “I’m so f–king sick of that rumor” when Peacemaker tells him to go “f–k a fish.”
On that note, Gunn praised both Miller and Momoa for being self-deprecating enough to appear in Peacemaker since the titular chrome-helmeted antihero makes a number of jokes at their expense throughout the series.
“I think both of those guys deserves total props because he does f–k with both of them the whole season, and so the fact that they have such a great sense of humor about themselves, I really appreciate both those guys and what they did.”
Gunn went on to say that Miller’s outtakes, in particular in the cameo scene, “are probably the greatest things I’ve ever had.”
“He literally went on for 30 minutes, and he hadn’t seen the show. I just showed him the scene of them walking away, and he kept calling Harcourt the little blonde boy. The best outtakes of all time are from him.”
We’re glad to see the world of Peacemaker cementing itself further into the larger Justice League mythology and the hilarious implications of what that could mean for the franchise’s future, despite notable cameo absences like Henry Cavill as the Man of Steel, Ray Fisher’s Cyborg, or Batman.
Watch Peacemaker episode eight on HBO Max now.