James Gunn confirms Peacemaker season 2 still coming despite those HBO Max troubles
"Yes, guys, calm down" Gunn wrote on Twitter this week
Confirming that Warner Bros. Discovery does, apparently, still really, really wanna taste it (“it,” in this case, being a second season of vulgar superhero comedy series Peacemaker), James Gunn hopped on Twitter today to confirm that the show has survived HBO Max’s recent purges.
Gunn was addressing questions from fans of the John Cena-starring show, understandably worried that Warner’s recent attacks on its own library—including the cancellation of almost fully completed Batgirl and Scooby-Doo movies—might extend to the Suicide Squad spin-off, which aired its enjoyable vulgar first season earlier this year. Gunn responded, per Bleeding Cool, with a straightforward, “Yes, guys, calm down.”
It’s not wholly surprising news: Gunn carries a lot of clout in Hollywood at the moment, with The Suicide Squad a modest success and his Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 on its way. And Peacemaker itself was a hit for the streaming service, with plenty of praise doled out both in front of and behind the camera for its story of a bad “hero” trying to become a slightly better person.
Gunn’s statement comes in the shadow of the Discovery – Warner Bros. merger, and the ascent of David Zaslav as the man in charge of HBO Max’s future—heralded by a whole bunch of layoffs and cancellations at the streaming service. Depressingly, there’s nothing especially new about a studio executive carving out some space for themselves by killing off most everything a predecessor green-lit. But Zaslav also seems weirdly hostile to streaming itself, which many of HBO Max’s competitors have embraced as the natural direction for both TV and movie content. (Something Warner Bros. led the charge on with its controversial plan to release films simultaneously on streaming and in theaters during the pandemic.) Zaslav is pushing back against that, hard, up to and including killing off finished projects that were slated for streaming.
Still: Would you want to be the one to tell Gunn, Cena, and their CGI eagle that they’re not getting a second season?