John Cena says to “give peace a f#cking chance” in the new poster for Peacemaker, a spinoff series to James Gunn’s latest movie The Suicide Squad. Set to debut on HBO Max in January, the series brings back Cena as the titular supervillain who thinks of himself as a patriotic superhero. Ahead of new footage arriving at DC FanDome this month, Cena and HBO Max provided another sneak peek with the character front and center on his red-and-white car.
There is so much to be excited about for #Peacemaker and so much F#CKN PEACE TO MAKE! The official @DCpeacemaker teaser trailer debuts next week in #DCFandome!! pic.twitter.com/3e4GwVgPdA
— John Cena (@JohnCena) October 8, 2021
“There is so much to be excited about for Peacemaker and so much F#CKN PEACE TO MAKE!” John Cena writes on Twitter, sharing the poster. He also confirms that a new, official Peacemaker teaser trailer will debut at DC FanDome, giving his fans something else big to look forward to at the event on Oct. 16. A teaser video hyping DC FanDome also includes some new Peacemaker footage.
James Gunn created Peacemaker, serving as the showrunner and writer. He also directed five episodes of the 8-episode season, including the premiere and the finale. John Cena stars in Peacemaker with the starring cast also including Steve Agee, Danielle Brooks, Robert Patrick, Jennifer Holland, Freddie Stroma, and Chukwudi Iwuji. We can presume that some other characters from The Suicide Squad may appear, but Gunn is likely saving some surprises for when the show arrives.
“Every character has their own story,” Gunn said of the Peacemaker cast in a Collider interview. “So there’s the six main characters of Peacemaker, Leota Adebayo, who’s Danielle Brooks, Emilia Harcourt, who’s Jennifer Holland, Vigilante, who’s Freddie Stroma, Clemson Murn, who is Chukwudi Iwuji, and John Economos, who is Steve Agee. It’s really an ensemble about those six characters.”
Of getting eight episodes to work with over trying to fit a complete story into one movie this time, Gunn added, “You are able to let things relax. You are able to really, fully focus on the characters. Something can be funny. It can go on for a little while. You get into the nuances of the dramatic relationships that you don’t have time for in a movie, and you don’t have to have that constantly chugging along [pace] that you have in a movie.”
There are no plans at this time for Peacemaker to go beyond this first season, but James Gunn is hoping that will happen. At the Television Critics Association panel in September, the filmmaker said that Cena’s character has “a lot to learn,” and it “wouldn’t take just one season of TV for him to learn that.” He also referred to a “deep well” of material he could use to flesh out further seasons of the show, should HBO Max end up ordering more. We will have to wait and see how Peacemaker does early next year before we’ll know for sure, in any case.
Peacemaker is scheduled to debut on HBO Max in January 2022. Before then, fans can catch a new teaser trailer when it is released out of DC FanDome on Oct. 16, 2021. If you missed it in theaters or on HBO Max, you can also check out Cena’s debut as Peacemaker in The Suicide Squad when it’s out on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD on Oct. 26.