James Gunn Says His PEACEMAKER Series is a "F**ked Up Version" of Ihe Old CAPTAIN AMERICA TV Movie
The first three episodes of James Gunn’s DC series Peacemaker recently dropped on HBO Max, and so far, the series is incredibly entertaining! I’ve enjoyed the first three episodes, and while I don’t really care for this character, it’s been fun to watch how his story continues to play out.
Gunn is opening up about the series and he revealed one of his main inspirations for it… the old 1970s Captain America TV movie. He explains that he wanted this show to be a “fucked up” version of that. During an interview with the Podly: The Peacemaker Podcast, the director said:
"I think it was a lot of different things [that appealed to me about Peacemaker]. Number one, I loved the Captain America TV movie from when I was a kid. I'm like, 'What would a really f*cked up version of that be like? If you ever go back and see it, it's terrible. But as a child, I loved it. So I'm like, 'What, in my brain, was that show?' Then you take that to sort of this extreme place, and that's Peacemaker."
Well, he’s accomplished with the series exactly what he set out to do. Gunn went on to explain that he’s interested in exploring superheroes that are different, saying:
"I'm interested in superheroes that are different, whether it's their superpower that's different like Ratcatcher 2. She has that superpower that we don't normally see, control of animals, that's much more interesting to me than all these people shooting ray guns out of their hands. But Peacemaker is like, he's kind of a bad guy, he's kind of a piece of crap, but he does have a point (laughs). He really does have a point, so I can see where he's coming from, and I also can think that he's wrong, and that makes an interesting character for me."
Gunn went on to share that he thought it would "be fun to be able to take that character and stretch him out a bit, really see how he is, see how he ticks, who he is, and then allow ourselves to have more humor, more drama, and just see all these different facets of this character [in Peacemaker]."
So far, I like what I’ve seen from the series. I’m enjoying his jacked-up take on Captain America! What do you all think?