James Gunn Has Revealed That ‘Peacemaker’ Builds Upon ‘The Suicide Squad’s Credits Scene With A Sci-Fi Storyline

WARNING: Spoilers for The Suicide Squad below.
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With The Suicide Squad now in theaters and streaming on HBO Max, writer/director James Gunn has opened up his upcoming HBO Max spinoff series starring John Cena’s Peacemaker. Admittedly created out of sheer boredom during last year’s quarantine, Gunn has been vague about the timeline for Peacemaker, which makes sense given that part of The Suicide Squad‘s thrill is that literally any character could be killed at any time — including Harley Quinn. In fact, Cena’s character seemingly bites it in the film’s final battle until the end credits reveal that he’s a tough “douchebag” to kill.

In a wide-ranging interview, Gunn confirms that the Peacemaker series will continue the events of the end credits scene, which sees Steve Agee and Jennifer Holland’s characters saddled with the task of handling Cena’s liberty-obsessed anti-hero. Gunn also confirmed that the series will have a similar tone to The Suicide Squad, but also deviate as needed for the story. Via The Hollywood Reporter:

It’s very specifically about a different group of people, so it’s a little bit more about society. One of the leads is Peacemaker and one of the leads is Danielle Brooks, who plays Leota Adebayo. And she has a very different political view of the world than Peacemaker does. So it’s just a little bit about what’s going on in the world, but also being a TV show, you really do have more time to delve much deeper into these characters and much more deeply into the drama and comedy of them. So it has a lot of similarities, but it’s even more grounded, more natural and more real. But it’s still within a big science-fiction storyline that lasts for one season.

While Peacemaker will wrap up its “main storyline” in the first season, Gunn teases that the show could potentially have more seasons. He also dropped an interesting tidbit about the DC Extended Universe, or DCEU, as its better known. While Warner Bros. and DC Comics have attempted to lean away from that label and the concept of a shared cinematic universe, Gunn said that’s not the case anymore.

According to Gunn, DC Films is “really just trying to make everything fit together much better,” and that applies to Peacemaker as well, “which is definitely connected to The Suicide Squad and it ends up being connected to other DC properties.”

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)