First look at John Cena as Peacekeeper in new HBO Max series

The Suicide Squad, James Gunn’s re-up of 2016’s critically panned Suicide Squad, comes out this summer. It features a huge cast of villains and antiheroes teaming up to take on a threat bigger than any of them could handle alone, and features some big names, including Idris Elba, Margot Robbie and John Cena.

And even though the movie isn’t even out yet, Cena’s character Peacemaker is already getting his own spinoff series on HBO Max, with five of the eight episodes directed by Gunn himself.  “Peacemaker’s a piece of shit,” the director told Empire. “He’s not a good guy. And he wears the goofiest costume you’ve ever seen in your life.”

"Peacemaker has a clear set of ideals that I find really interesting. You know: ‘I want peace no matter how many men, women and children I need to kill to get it.’ Sounds like nonsense, but it also makes a lot of sense. And you see in John’s performance how he does not feel good about it – something I thought was the seed of an entire eight-episode show…He represents a part of the world populace that is problematic to say the least, and puts him in a situation where he has to face the choices he’s made throughout his life and the extremity of his views."

At the same time, Gunn isn’t prepared to call Peacekeeper a villain. He thinks it’s a little more complicated that than:

Cena has a pretty low opinion of Peacemaker, too, but also the same spirit of curiosity. “This guy is a loud, obnoxious, bro-ey douchebag,” he said. “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.”

It sounds like Peacekeeper will have a bit of the iconoclastic spirit of Amazon’s The Boys, which is all about superheroes who are power-made jerks. Expect it sometime in 2022.

What’s more interesting to me is that Warner Bros. — the studio that makes the DC Comics movies — is going in on a spinoff of The Suicide Squad before the movie is even out. I’m guessing this has to do with battling Marvel, which already has a series of successful superhero TV shows in the form of WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Loki, with lots more on the way. Since Iron Man kicked off the superhero cinematic revolution in 2008, Warner Bros. has always been playing catchup with Marvel on the big screen. Now that’s happening on the small screen, too.

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