James Gunn Soars with Superman and Peacemaker
A byproduct of the dominance of superhero content within popular culture is that filmmakers interested in working with substantial topics must filter their ideas through the lens of established comic book mythology. This is a gift and a hindrance based on the individual creator’s adaptability. Positive examples include Chistopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy, which told a Michael Mann-esque crime saga within Gotham City, or the Tom Holland-led reboot of the Spider-Man series, which turned Peter Parker into a put-upon teenager who wouldn’t have felt out of place in a John Hughes film. Conversely, there are filmmakers whose sensibilities are ill-suited for a broader cinematic universe, in which stories are rarely self-contained. Chloe Zhao failed to replicate the naturalism of her Best Picture winner Nomadland in the disastrous Marvel film Eternals, and Madame Web was so riddled with obvious production difficulties that it's impossible to determine how much control director S.J. Clarkson had.
This new reality has been beneficial to James Gunn, who may be the most ardent comic book enthusiast ever handed the reins to a major production company. Gunn’s passion for comic book-style storytelling was evident within his early Troma short films, and gave him a competitive advantage as the screenwriter behind Dawn of the Dead and Scooby-Doo. The novelty of Gunn’s success in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was that he turned the relatively obscure Guardians of the Galaxy comic book series into a trilogy of acclaimed films that were embraced for their geeky idiosyncrasies. The creative freedom Gunn has been allowed on the HBO original Peacemaker may seem astounding, but his credentials have spoken for themselves.
The origin story of Peacemaker is a strange one that would’ve only been possible within the current era of studio synergy and intense competition. Although the first two installments of the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy received unanimous praise, Gunn was abruptly fired by Walt Disney Studios after a series of decade-old tweets were unearthed by a right-wing blogger. Gunn would eventually be reinstated as the director of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, but the brief gap in his schedule allowed Warner Bros. to hire him for The Suicide Squad, a soft reboot of one of their most challenged productions ever.
The 2016 film Suicide Squad was rushed into development after Warner Bros. decided to orient an entire DC Extended Universe around Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, as the studio was keen to earn the same success that Marvel Studios had with the crossover event of The Avengers. While initially pitched as a dark anti-hero film about a group of mercenaries, Suicide Squad was wrestled away from director David Ayer when Warner Bros. got cold feet about the approach, and decided to insert more humor, action, and needle drops. The result was a mess that was hastily shoehorned together, but Suicide Squad still made almost $750 million globally.
By the time a sequel was put into development, the DC Extended Universe had taken a turn for the worse, as The Avengers-esque crossover event Justice League suffered from the same confusion of tone as Suicide Squad. The sequel that Gunn was hired to direct, uncreatively titled The Suicide Squad, retained popular characters like Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) and Rick Flagg (Joel Kinnaman), but killed off the majority of the previous cast, who were replaced with spunkier characters more aligned with the director’s sensibilities. Among these additions was John Cena as the jingoistic assassin Christopher Smith, whose nickname “Peacemaker” was an ironic allusion to his love of warfare.
The Suicide Squad earned the best reviews of any of the DC Extended Universe films, but bombed at the box office due to Warner Bros.’ failed strategic approach in 2021, in which new releases were made available on the HBO Max streaming service the same day they debuted in theaters. Perhaps a sequel to one of the worst superhero films ever made should’ve added more than a “The” to its title, but those who caught up with The Suicide Squad agreed that Cena was a standout. Cena had developed an ability to play larger-than-life, egocentric characters who don’t realize they’re the butt of a joke. Gunn was given the greenlight to make Peacemaker, a spinoff series for HBO that examined the difficult road to redemption that Cena’s character went through after being abandoned by his government employers.
Peacemaker is surprisingly one of the more accessible superhero shows, despites its strange connection with continuity. The show was developed before a 2022 shakeup in which Warner Bros. hired Gunn and his frequent collaborator Peter Safran to run the newly established DC Studios, which would develop a new era of connected stories across television and film. Henry Cavill’s Superman, Ben Affleck’s Batman, Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, Jason Momoa’s Aquaman, and a majority of the brooding heroes introduced in Snyder’s films were dropped in favor of a rebooted set of characters, with this year’s Superman (directed by Gunn) as its first entry. Nonetheless, Peacemaker unsurprisingly avoided cancellation, as Gunn dropped Cena into the new continuity with nothing more than a one-liner to explain it.
Superman is a refreshingly silly take on a character who’s been treated too seriously, but it's also burdened by the fact that it must set up multiple spinoffs. If Superman is the best possible result of Gunn’s role as a studio head, Peacemaker is the crass, offensive, and sporadically sentimental project that’s truest to his roots. In an era where comic book fans demand that their source material be treated as classical literature, Peacemaker is hostile to costumed characters, as the implication is that it takes a true narcissist to take on a secret identity. The best endorsement the show could receive is that while Peacemaker might be the epitome of a project that geeks longed for, its nihilistic attitude might appease those who are over the whole superhero fanfare.