***Warning spoilers ahead for season one of “Peacemaker” and, most importantly, the big cameos in the show’s finale.***
“Peacemaker” became the first big DCEU television series launching on HBO Max as DC Films looks to branch out their live-action comic book universe on the streaming service with films like “Batgirl” and other shows brewing on the horizon.
The series is a direct spinoff of “The Suicide Squad,” with James Gunn writing and directing most of the episodes. Having a foot in the mainline cinematic universe gave Gunn both reasons to help connect it to other superhero franchises, and the show’s finale didn’t leave anything to fan imaginations, as four members of the “Justice League” show up at the end. Seeing Jason Momoa’s Aquaman and Ezra Miller’s Flash banter about Peacemaker’s inference that Arthur has sex with fishes, however, it seemed obvious that Wonder Woman and Superman were played by stand-ins.
READ MORE: ‘Peacemaker’ Renewed For Season 2 As HBO Max Executive Teases New James Gunn DC TV Show
Gunn has revealed to Deadline how those cameos came together, and a portion was shot on the set of “Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.3” in Atlanta when the bulk of the show was filmed in Vancouver.
“Jason, I have known for a while. So, we had a preexisting relationship, and also Peter Safran, who’s the producer on the show, and he’s one of my closest allies and friends; he’s friends with Jason because he produces the ‘Aquaman’ movies. So, we asked Jason. We knew Jason was probably going to do it very early on. Ezra came in as more of a surprise. I found out through a couple of friends that Ezra liked my films, and so then I connected with him and asked him to do it, as well. So, yeah, we were just lucky with the two of them,” Gunn told Deadline.
How it was shot was revealed by Gunn as well, “It was nice because we shot it on the set and with the crew of ‘Guardians of The Galaxy: Vol. 3.’ You know, they were kind of paying us back, though, because DC, Chukwudi Iwuji, we used the Peacemaker crew to shoot Chukwudi’s screen test for ‘Guardians 3,’ and DC was really cool about that, and then Marvel was really cool about letting us use our crew to shoot Ezra.”
Does this mean season two will have bigger cross-pollination with the film side of things? We’ll just have to wait and see. It doesn’t hurt that the cameos help promote the upcoming releases of “The Flash” and “Aquaman & The Lost Kingdom” in a small way.