As strange as it sounds, a combination of Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead and the Coronavirus pandemic set a chain of events in motion that saw John Cena get his own spinoff series from The Suicide Squad, with Peacemaker set to premiere on HBO Max early next year.
After Dave Bautista turned down the role that was written specifically for him in the DCEU blockbuster by his Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn, one of Hollywood’s other ex-WWE stars was hired to play the character instead. Once the industry went into hibernation following the onset of COVID-19, Gunn wrote the Peacemaker show to keep his creative juices flowing more than anything else, but it ended up being ordered straight to series by WarnerMedia’s streaming service.
Of course, as a prequel there’s absolutely no guarantees that the title hero is going to make it out of The Suicide Squad alive, especially when Gunn has already teased that survivors could be thin on the ground. Production on the eight-episode superhero show is set to conclude in the next couple of weeks, and you can check out the first official behind the scenes image below.
Gunn wrote the entire run of episodes and will direct a handful as well, keeping him incredibly busy as he simultaneously gears up to start shooting Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 before the year is out. Cena described Peacemaker as a f*cked up superhero, and as the first live-action DC project announced for HBO Max that doesn’t involve either Matt Reeves or J.J. Abrams, Gunn will be looking to set a high benchmark for the rest of the small screen roster to follow.
