DC Studios' DCU slate has undergone a few changes since being announced at the start of 2023, with a few different projects falling by the wayside and others unexpectedly added to what's been dubbed "Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters."
Peacemaker season 2 was in the works before filmmaker James Gunn was named co-CEO alongside Peter Safran, and despite its R-rating, the series is billed as a pivotal part of the story he's telling in the DCU.
GQ asked the Superman helmer about his decision to prioritise Peacemaker, and it seems it boiled down to him wanting to focus on DC's existing A-listers and characters with the potential to reach that same level of popularity, like Chris Smith.
"From the beginning before I ever took the job as the co-head of DC Studios, Peter Safran and I went in there, and our job is to really get the most out of the DC brand, and a lot of that was to be able to maintain and hopefully upgrade some of these characters, whether it's Superman or Wonder Woman or Batman that are the diamond properties."
"But it's also to take other characters and turn them into diamond properties, and that is Peacemaker or whatever, Lanterns—the other characters that aren't as known universally. Which is what I was able to do at Marvel. I mean, the two biggest rides in the world are both the Guardians rides."
"And that's incredible because nobody knew who those characters were, but now it's just like they're a part of the Marvel lore in a way that makes them major players. And to be able to do that with Peacemaker—it’s so funny, every time I've sat in a crowd watching Superman and Peacemaker comes on screen, it was one of the crowd's favorite moments, and that's a character nobody knew."
Looking beyond Peacemaker to the wider DCU, Gunn confirmed that "there's actually two really cool film scripts that I'm hoping to take to the next level that we have general plans for, and I'm excited about both of those. And then I'm excited about one TV project in particular."
He added, "I don't know why we're not greenlighted on that already—it's just figuring out the budget. So there's a couple of things that are very present that I'm excited about. Dealing with getting Supergirl into shape, all these other things."
"Watching episodes of Lanterns—that's coming along well," Gunn said of the HBO series. "So, it's really just dealing a little bit with everything and then mostly Man of Tomorrow. That's the biggest thing for me. I mean, we go into production in April."
Back to Peacemaker, and last week's episode left fans with plenty to discuss. As well as confirming that the show's alternate reality is Earth-X, Nicholas Hoult made a cameo appearance as Lex Luthor and revealed that he's in a cell next to "a bear-sized man with dragon skin [who is] butt-f***ing a glowing twink."
Acknowledging that "it's probably the first time that [Lex has] said "butt-f***ing" in any medium," Gunn said, "It was exciting to see everybody's reactions, but I got a lot of questions about, 'I think the butt-f***ing guy is Killer Croc, but who's the glowing twink?" When it was put to the filmmaker that Killer Croc could be "canonically bisexual," he replied, "Well, you know, who knows?"
Peacemaker episode 7, "Like a Keith in the Night," premieres on HBO Max this Thursday. You can see some stills from that here.