James Gunn discusses the Premiere of “Peacemaker” and the Opening Credits to the Dance Party

The Skip Intro era of television’s Streaming Era has also been a success. This era encourages binge-watchers to skip past the opening credits and jump right into the story. Many shows from this era feature long, repetitive main title sequences which make this function a great help. (The first major streaming drama. House of CardsSkip Intro was almost inspired by a sequence of credits that induces comas.

Then there are the intros that you will never, ever want to skip, like the awesomely cheesy title sequence for HBO Max’s Peacemaker, in which John Cena and friends get their dance on to the sound of Norwegian glam metal band Wig Wam’s “Do Ya Wanna Taste It.”

Just like all the best TV intros. The Rockford Files To The Sopranos To Game of Thrones, this musical number — which Peacemaker James Gunn, creator, came up with the idea for this spinoff on day one of writing his script. The Suicide Squad— is hugely entertaining in its own right, while also building the right mood for the show that follows it.

Gunn spoke to Gunn yesterday Rolling Stone What the song is about, what the choreography is and why? “vanquish the Skip Intro”Click the button for life.

What was the inspiration for this title sequence?
This is the truth. I did it in a movie called Super, It was animated only. We didn’t have a budget for it. I love having dance sequences and having fun with it and I wanted something in the beginning of this show that was going to be different and fun and make it clear that we were going to be a different kind of superhero show, that we didn’t have any rules in place, and that would say something about the creative approach and tone.

Do you have any favourite title sequences from other shows or movies?
Most of my favorite titles are from movies. The GreaseI found the title sequence to be very special. It was just me that loved the idea of creating a title sequence people would love to watch.

The credits are paused on the monitor, but the Skip Intro button is still taunting.
My goal is to eliminate the Skip Intro button. These are things that people put in a lot of effort. You want the audience to pay more attention to their names. If viewers could do the same for all eight episodes, it would make it worthwhile.

How many songs were you able to consider and how did you come up with the Wig Wam tune?
All music that is glam-metal exists in the world Peacemaker — hair metal, sleaze rock, whatever you want to call it, or a mixture of those genres. To be totally honest, Wig Wam was the first thing I thought of. I began to compile a list. Peacemaker Before I began writing the show, music was a part of my life. The Wig Wam song seemed to have the perfect lyrics for our show. “Do you wanna taste it? Do you really wanna taste it?”There was no other song in my mind. It was there, as well as the idea of having the dance in the teleplays.

From where did the idea for choreography originate?
Charissa Lee Barton, a choreographer who was truly amazing, was the one I hired. Charissa-Lee Barton was the one who understood me best. I’m not a choreographer, but I showed her some of what I thought the dance moves were like, and I explained the basic essence of the scene, which is it’s just this absolutely ludicrous, goofy, nonsense dance, but combined with everybody being absolutely dead serious, and not breaking for even a half-second. Everything is very serious on one side and completely absurd on the other. I think it’s very much like the spirit of the show. It’s a serious show in certain ways, and in others, it’s just completely bananas. Charissa was able to understand my point and she took over the lifting. She was able to get all the actors to come into rehearsals and work hard. Funny thing about it is that she married my friend only after I hired them. [Resident Alien star]Alan Tudyk. When she sent me the little clips of dance moves ideas from her kitchen, I found that they all featured Alan as Peacemaker.

I notice different things every time I watch this intro. Like, when Jennifer Holland comes in as Harcourt, she’s moving like a marionette. Did you have certain themes in mind?
[Laughs.] I don’t know. Maybe Charissa was. It was clear that not all people are equally good at dancing. Jen was probably the best dancer of anyone, she’s a former gymnast and she was able to do everything really well. Others were somewhere in the middle. Danielle [Brooks]It was amazing. Annie Chang plays Detective Song and is a great dancer. We also had Robert Patricks, who are entertaining to watch but not for their song-and-dance skills. It’s fun to focus on the different people doing the dance. Steve Agee said that he and Chuk were saying this. [Chukwudi Iwuji]They were terrible, but they were good. Steve was amazing for being such a large man.

John Cena’s an athlete, but not all athletes are necessarily good dancers. What help did he require, if any?
He needed assistance. He wasn’t like Elizabeth or Danielle. [Faith Ludlow]. He was more patient than others. But I thought John was a really good dancer, and I think we got lucky overall in how everybody was able to dance fairly well, to do the choreography, when I was afraid they wouldn’t be able to do it. Charissa, in a way, designed it around the actors. She considered their capabilities and gave some people more, while others had to do less.

There are your main cast, but there are also guest stars that only appear once or twice throughout the season. Did some of those dancers only appear in the first episode of the series?
That’s sort of true, but someone is in there who doesn’t come in until Episode Five, and we shot it in the middle of the schedule for the season. It was all shot in a high school auditorium, which I still remember being a pain. Rizwan was contacted. [Manji, who plays hospital custodian Jamil in two episodes]It was said. “Do you want to be in the dance?”He said yes but it was during Covid Canada so he had three quarantines for two weeks each time. One was for the dance.

Did you have a visual inspiration that inspired the black and neon stage?
Lisa Soper was our production designer. I originally said I want it to look like a Seventies variety show, like with Sonny and Cher, but we tried that and for some reason it didn’t work, and we got more into the Eighties stuff. And I think that just made more sense, because a lot of things about Peacemaker’s personality come from that decade, so the Eighties music video set, like from Kraftwerk, fit a little bit better. The original plan was to perform the entire sequence of dances in Peacemaker Headquarters, which is a huge set for the season. But we started rehearsing it in there, and it didn’t look right; it looked too small. I replied, “I think we have to create a set for this.” I’m so glad that we did that.

At this point, you are known for creating soundtracks that fit the personality of your characters. Peacemaker doesn’t need glam metal.
It almost seems like Peacemaker would love this type of music. For the last few years, I’ve also had this personal obsession with what people call “hair metal” music. This perfectly ties into the making of this show. It may have been one of the reasons I chose Peacemaker from all the characters. The Suicide Squad. Growing up I was a punk-rock kid, so I have a fondness for pop music. I liked Mötley Crüe and certain things. Hanoi Rocks, about which we speak a lot during the season, was a very important band to me. However, I was also very critical of hair metal music. I think there’s great songs in every genre of music if you look hard enough. I was obsessed with finding great hair metal songs and bands. So, I started a massive collection on Spotfiy and discovered many of the best modern sleaze-rock artists, most of which are from northern Europe. And I think they’re much better in general than your average hair metal bands from the Eighties because they don’t take it so seriously. It’s a commitment to fun. Part of the plan was to get the word out about some modern bands like Wig Wam and Cruel Intentions.

Was Eagly, Peacemaker’s pet eagle, always meant to fly in at the end of the credits?
I wrote the scene for the dance in the first draft. I completed the first draft of the script in less than a week. I recently came across a storyboard I made that has those exact positions at the end, including Judomaster on Peacemaker’s shoulders and Eagly in front.

Do you still remember the description of the dance scene you wrote in your first script writing day?
I said: “It’s the greatest opening credits scene of all time,”And “It’s the weirdest dance you’ve ever seen and everyone in it is completely and 100 percent serious.”

Thank you for your time and I promise that I won’t skip Intro on this one.
We’re just thinking about how we’re going to up our game in Season Two.

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