James Gunn enjoys Peacemaker victory lap by teasing more The Suicide Squad spin-offs

Taking a break from his duties directing Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3, James Gunn, who has secured his place as both DC and Marvel’s golden child, following a bad-faith attempt to derail his career, is enjoying the fruits of his labor. The director’s first The Suicide Squad spin-off, Peacemaker, was a gamble considering that many saw its progenitor as a box-office dud, but it’s currently doing the opposite of a Slipknot and cleaning up on HBO Max.

“We’re the biggest show in the world right now,” Gunn told Deadline from the Atlanta set of Guardians 3. To that end, it sounds like a second season of the John Cena vehicle is all but inevitable, but Gunn says that he’s the one holding it up. “The show is doing extraordinarily well, and we’re excited, we all like doing it, we just need to cross some Ts and dot some Is, which is basically me.”

HBO Max must be pretty happy about that, because Gunn also teased more The Suicide Squad spin-offs—which hopefully means at least one show starting with the letter “W” and ending with the word “easel.” “We’re basically on something else now, another TV show that’s connected to that universe,” Gunn said. “I can’t quite say.”

The Suicide Squad’s day and date HBO Max release may have hindered its box office success, but Gunn says it laid the runway necessary to make Peacemaker a hit, even against stiff streaming competition like the much-hyped second season of The Witcher and Disney+’s The Book Of Boba Fett.

“I wasn’t happy about Suicide Squad going to TV day and date, we also happened to come out at the absolute peak of Delta, so it was a difficult decision,” Gunn said. “For the sake of Peacemaker, I’m really glad: It got more subscribers for HBO, billions of people saw it on HBO; for Peacemaker it worked out really well.”

Now, on to what everyone wants to know: Will Peter Capaldi’s Thinker be in the next show? Well, there’s no answer to that. On the other hand, though, Gunn did leave some breadcrumbs. “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.” So he’s saying the new show will be in the same universe, which only narrows it down to about 15,000 characters. Great.