‘Peacemaker’: Behind James Gunn’s ‘Unskipable’ Title Sequence

Suicide Squad director James Gunn wants his new show, Peacemaker, to give credit where credit is due. Since it dropped the first three episodes last week (January 13), the HBO Max show didn't boasted a title sequence so spectacular that instead of skipping it, they played it over and over.

In an interview with Rotten Tomatoes, Gunn said, "First of all, I want to vanquish the skip-forward button. There's a lot of people that work hard on the show and I want people to get to see the name of our production designer Lisa, our editors Fred and Greg, and all of our guest stars and actors and I want them to see those names."

He continued to say, "And so I thought I wanted to create something that people would not want to skip over and watch eight episodes of." Gunn got together with a choreographer who helped him bring his script to life, with Wig Wam's 'Do Ya Want To Taste It.' The basic concept of everyone in the opening credits scene having a serious expression on their faces, while having dance moves that are as "ludicrous as possible" was Gunn's ultimate goal, which we think he surely achieved.

The Guardians of the Galaxy director even showed choreographer Charissa Barton what exact moves he wanted by dancing them himself. They shot the opening credits in one day in a high school auditorium and "it was a blast."

Peacemaker stars John Cena as the titular character, who believes in peace at any cost... as he noted in The Suicide Squad, "No matter how many people I have to kill to get it!" The rest of the cast includes Danielle Brooks as Adebayo, Freddie Stroma as Vigilante, Jennifer Holland as Harcourt, Chukwudi Iwuji as Murn, Steve Agee as Economos and Robert Patrick as Auggie Smith, the Peacemaker's dad.

Dance along to the opening credits of Peacemaker, now streaming on HBO Max, below: