The last twelve months have seen many people end up with more time on their hands than usual as the Coronavirus pandemic saw vast swathes of the planet placed into various lockdowns throughout the year, but James Gunn decided to do something productive and pen Peacemaker, an HBO Max spinoff for John Cena’s character from The Suicide Squad.
The filmmaker admitted that he’d developed the concept just for fun, only for the streaming service to order the project straight to series the very next month, with Gunn credited as the writer on all eight episodes, while he also directed a handful himself. Cena is listed as an executive producer alongside The Suicide Squad‘s Peter Safran, and Gunn has now revealed on social media that another one of the producers thought an explosion on set had genuinely killed someone, as you can see below.
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Ironically, getting fired from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has seen James Gunn become busier than ever. He almost immediately boarded The Suicide Squad following his dismissal by Disney, moved straight onto Peacemaker and now he’s back at Marvel Studios, with Vol. 3 set to begin production before the end of the year, and the Holiday Special scheduled to hit Disney Plus during next year’s festive season.
Shooting on Peacemaker will conclude at the start of June, with HBO Max confirming a January 2022 premiere for the limited series. Gunn has also previously admitted that he had so much fun creating and shooting the DCEU spinoff that he might focus his energies almost exclusively on television once Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is in the can, drawing a line under his time at the helm of the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise in the process.