Writer/director James Gunn’s hallmark style is well known for its musical stylings. Sure, the humor and the ensemble casts get plenty of love as well, but the soundtracks are guaranteed to stick out. So it’s unsurprising that his latest DC project, Peacemaker, which spun out of his 2021 film The Suicide Squad, has plenty of needledrops to go around–and then there are those opening credits, which deserve a shout-out all their own.
With the first three episodes of the show streaming now on HBO Max, the specific musical tone of Peacemaker should be obvious, but it might be a little surprising. Rather than classic rock or even obnoxiously patriotic country, Peacemaker is all about glam rock and hair metal. But there’s a very specific reason, according to Gunn himself.
In speaking with a roundtable of journalists, Gunn explained that these genres “speak to Peacemaker’s spirit. He loves hair metal because it speaks to everything his dad isn’t, you know? It’s androgynous–I think about Peacemaker bringing home a Hanoi Rocks album with the guys in the make-up and the fishnet stockings and everything else. Or bringing home a Mötley Crüe album with a satanic symbol on the front. Those are a direct affront to who his father is. So the music is definitely something that belongs to Peacemaker as the series goes on.”
And of course, Gunn assured, all the songs were written directly into the script as is his usual custom. “It was very fun,” he said, “to be able to build it all into the very fabric of the story.”
As for the opening credits? Those are a little bit more literal in terms of their meaning. Gunn joked when explaining their place in the show, calling out the lyrics “Do you want to taste it? Do you really want to taste it?” as a sign that the show is “willing to go anywhere.” He elaborated: “Whether that’s about, you know, filthy language or sex or this ridiculous dance number. There’s no real constraints on what we can do here creatively. We aren’t your normal DC or Marvel superhero TV show. I think it’s more a story about a sad guy who wears a costume and lives in a world of superheroes and has to compare himself to them, and we see how envious he is of them.”
The first three episodes of Peacemaker are currently streaming on HBO Max with new episodes debuting weekly.
Source: Gamespot
