Peacemaker, The Suicide Squad TV spin-off show, will have one distinct advantage over its movie counterpart, according to director James Gunn.
Speaking to Collider as part of The Suicide Squad's press tour, Gunn explained how he approached Peacemaker's plot and character development in a different way to his forthcoming Warner Bros. superhero flick.
Gunn explained that, while Peacemaker – an origins story for John Cena's character in The Suicide Squad – will be centered on "one big storyline", he admitted that TV's episodic format provided more opportunities to dive into each character and give the series' plot more room to breathe.
- Here's our review of The Suicide Squad
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"You are able to let things relax," Gunn said. "You are able to really, fully focus on the characters. Something can be funny. It can go on for a little while. You get into the nuances of the dramatic relationships that you don't have time for in a movie, and you don't have to have that constantly chugging along [pace] that you have in a movie... You can have a scene that doesn't have to do with anything in a TV show, because it's such a large format.
"We've got eight hours of storytelling, [so] we can have something go off, and it doesn't really need to go to point A and point B and point C like you do in a movie... So I loved the format of television. I had a blast, and I think it suited me very well."
Analysis: Peacemaker on HBO Max will do something that The Suicide Squad couldn't
Gunn's comments about movie and TV show productions aren't a major revelation.
TV productions have always had one big advantage over their silver-screen cousins. Being able to tell a story over multiple episodes, compared to a two-hour movie, means creators can dive into what makes their characters tick, the themes they want to convey and more.
This is particularly true of The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker's upcoming TV show.
In our review for The Suicide Squad, we felt that the movie's chaotic nature and relentless pace didn't allow for much character development throughout its two-hour runtime.
With eight episodes between 40 and 45 minutes in length, according to Gunn, HBO Max's Peacemaker series will have the time and space to hone in on specific characters' personalities, flaws, backstories and more.
Having an extra four hours to tell a story and focus on individual characters goes a long way to giving every cast member some time to shine. In that sense, it's unsurprising to see why certain projects are being turned into TV shows instead of movies, especially if they're getting as big a budget as their movie contemporaries.
A two-hour Peacemaker spin-off movie may have been a good watch, but a Peacemaker TV series – with a budget and cinematic scope to rival that of The Suicide Squad – should be even better.
