Writer/director James Gunn opens up about how his next The Suicide Squad spin-off show will be different than HBO Max's Peacemaker. The 2021 film marked Gunn's debut in the DC Extended Universe after his star-making comic book genre work with the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Guardians of the Galaxy movies. The Suicide Squad serves as a standalone sequel to its predecessor as Viola Davis' Amanda Waller builds a new Task Force X to head to the island nation of Corto Maltese to eliminate all traces of Project Starfish, an alien kaiju also known as Starro the Conqueror.
For the film, Gunn assembled an ensemble cast of both new and returning stars including Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn, Jai Courtney's Captain Boomerang, Idris Elba's Bloodsport, Joel Kinnaman's Rick Flag, David Dastmalchian's Polka-Dot Man and Daniela Melchior's Ratcatcher 2. One of the many faces introduced in The Suicide Squad was that of John Cena's Christopher Smith, better known as Peacemaker, a jingoistic killer who seeks to achieve peace regardless of the costs, including turning on his own team to follow Waller's orders. Following the success of the film, the character would go on to lead his own HBO Max series exploring his origins and going on a new mission for Waller to stop an alien invasion, and the ball is only just getting rolling on an expansion of Gunn's Suicide Squad world.
In a recent interview with Deadline, James Gunn opened up how his next The Suicide Squad spin-off series will be different than Peacemaker. Though he wouldn't offer new details for who will be the center of the next project, the filmmaker did tease that there would be a bit of a genre shift from the John Cena-led series. See what Gunn said below:
“I can’t say anything. It is connected to this universe, and I don’t think it will be the same genre as Peacemaker, it won’t be as much a comedy as Peacemaker, but it will be in the same universe."
Even prior to the film's release, Gunn and Warner Bros. seemed thoroughly confident in their future plans for The Suicide Squad, beginning with Peacemaker. Though the movie would ultimately underperform at the box office due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, R-rating and HBO Max simultaneous release, it would receive major critical acclaim and establish a promising relationship between the filmmaker and studio. This success has carried over to Peacemaker, which went on to become the best-reviewed DCEU title to date and received a season 2 renewal in time for the season 1 finale airing on HBO Max.
Gunn's tease of a different genre for his next The Suicide Squad spin-off series in comparison to that of Peacemaker should be enticing for those eager to see what comes next. While his comments may be appropriately coy to keep the public guessing, his note that there will be less comedy than that of the first show may offer some insight for which character will be getting the solo treatment next, potentially that of Ratcatcher 2 or Polka-Dot Man to further explore their dramatic backstories. While audiences await word on details for the next The Suicide Squad spinoff, they can catch up with Peacemaker season 1 streaming in its entirety on HBO Max now.
Source: Deadline
