HBO Max's Peacemaker has a small, but significant, connection to Justice League director Zack Snyder."My friend Wayne [Dalglish] & I had such a great time doing the fight choreography & stunts for [Peacemaker] that I hired him on [Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3]," Peacemaker writer-director James Gunn said on Twitter. Dalglish served as the stunt coordinator for all eight episodes of The Suicide Squad spinoff series, after being recommended to Gunn by Snyder.
Among other roles, Dalglish has worked as a fight choreographer, stunt coordinator and stunt performer for several films in the DC Extended Universe, including Snyder's Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League, as well as Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman.
That's not the only connection to the DCEU in Peacemaker, with John Cena's Christopher Smith/Peacemaker slinging plenty of insults referencing DC heroes like Superman and Aquaman. Most notably, however, is him calling Batman "a p---y!" in the upcoming fourth episode. In a recent interview, Gunn explained that this line of dialogue is the only insult DC Films took issue with. "I was very surprised, because they were not too fond of Peacemaker calling Batman a p---y," he said. "I'm like, 'But he talks about all these other terrible things about all these other superheroes that are much worse than calling Batman a p---y.'"
Despite DC's reservations, the insult made it into the show. "They let me get away with what I got away with at the end of the day," Gunn said, who previously stated that the studio let him go "hog wild" for Peacemaker. "...for the most part, these guys have been fantastic partners, but especially HBO Max was."
Gunn had a lot of freedom when creating Peacemaker, but recently described two of the "craziest" and most challenging scenes he filmed for the series, one of which was a series of stunts on a balcony in Episode 2. "The other thing I love about it is that those stunts -- what I call gags -- so those gags that Spencer [Thomas] was doing -- he's John Cena's stunt double -- are probably the best stunts I've ever seen in my life. They're deceptively simple, but he was really jumping down all those things," Gunn siad. "It was just incredible to see. It's so painful, and Spence was a real member of the team throughout the whole shooting and just did a fantastic job."
Peacemaker picks up after the events of The Suicide Squad. Announced as a television series in 2020, Cena will reprise his The Suicide Squad role for the upcoming HBO Max original series. "This guy is a loud, obnoxious, bro-ey douchebag," Cena previously said about his character. "That sucks. But why? At what point did he become such a douchebag and what does that mean? There's a lot to dive into there." This was addressed in the trailer, with Leota Adebayo nothing that he uses "being a jerk to push people away."
New episodes of Peacemaker air Thursdays on HBO Max.
Source: Twitter