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James Gunn Eyeing Second ‘Suicide Squad’ Spinoff Series For HBO Max, Says ‘Peacemaker’ Has “Really Good Chance” For Season 2

Anthony D'Alessandro and Dominic Patten
·3 min read
2

EXCLUSIVE: There’s another Suicide Squad spinoff series in the works, James Gunn recently told us on the upcoming episode of Deadline’s Hero Nation.

“We’re working on something else now, another TV show that’s connected to that universe,” Gunn told us, “I can’t quite say.”

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Peacemaker John Cena
Peacemaker John Cena

In addition, Gunn says about a second season of Peacemaker, which recently dropped episode 5 today, “There’s a really good chance of that.”

“We’re the biggest show in the world right now,” Gunn continued, speaking from the set of Guardians of the Galaxy 3 in Atlanta.

According to sources, Gunn has approached HBO Max with the idea for another series built around one of the characters in Suicide Squad. We hear the project is in the embryonic stages with nothing written or greenlit but HBO Max is said to be high on it based on Gunn’s enthusiasm for the idea.

HBO Max, when contacted by Deadline, had no comment on either a second Suicide Squad spinoff nor a second season of Peacemaker.

While Gunn did not decisively confirm either Idris Elba’s Bloodsport or Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn characters as the ones he’s considering, it seems the two stars’ schedules are too jam-packed to fit in a TV series right now.

However, as we all know, that can change.

When prodded as to whether the next Suicide Squad series on HBO Max would involve Doctor Who alum and Suicide Squad star Peter Capaldi, who played Thinker in the recent movie, Gunn laughed, saying, “I can’t say anything. 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.”

In regards to season 2 of the Cena HBO Max series, Gunn said, “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.”

Does Gunn have any regrets, like Patty Jenkins did with Wonder Woman 1984, about Suicide Squad going day-and-date in theaters and on HBO Max last summer? The critically acclaimed and audience favorite movie wound up making $55.8M domestic and $167.4M WW at the box office, versus the pre-pandemic haul of the 2016 installment which did $325.1M stateside and $746.8M WW.

“It’s been borne out that things didn’t work the best, but I have to say that process is working out incredibly well for me because of Peacemaker,” Gunn answers.

“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,” he added.

“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,” said Gunn.

Peacemaker was conceived by Gunn during the pandemic lockdown of 2020 as he was finishing the edit of Suicide Squad.

“I was starting to get bored, because I was locked down, I was depressed, I was having heavy anxiety like a lot of us were at that time and still today, and I needed something to take care of myself,” he told us.

“That’s where the show comes from,” Gunn said. “I needed something to soothe myself.”

Watch out for the Hero Nation podcast dropping later this morning.

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