Peacemaker debuted on HBO Max to rave reviews and while fans were obsessed with John Cena's take on the character from the mind of James Gunn, one thing really stuck out to everyone: The opening title sequence. And now there's a new behind-the-scenes featurette that takes us into the creation of the dance number from choreographer Charissa Barton. Calling it a "Peacemaker groove", we get an inside look into how the cast approached the dance and why it happened in the first place.
As Gunn says in the video, there is a dance number in everything he's done. Famously, The Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 leads us to a dance battle between Peter Quill and Ronan the Accuser. It is part of Gunn's particular style and there is something so beautifully wild and weird about the opening credits that works with Peacemaker despite not tying into it otherwise.
"The song, it posts a question," star Jennifer Holland said. "And that question is: Do you want to taste it?" Which then instantly has a shot of Cena sliding into the center of the dance number with his back facing us, a common thread throughout the entirety of Peacemaker. "We are dancing to Wig Wam's Do You Want to Taste It?. It's 80s glam, hair band metal," Cena says which does tie into the show as a whole as his character Chris Smith (also known as Peacemaker) loves hair metal. To the point where he almost dies in the first episode because he's singing a rock song and not paying attention to what the woman he slept with is doing.
Chukwudi Iwuji nails it when talking about Barton, saying that she has created the dance to feel somewhat like how a comic book does with their fighting style. But then Barton herself went on to explain how a lot of the movement is rooted in modern dance with influences from Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Or, as Holland says, "it's a little bit like if claymation was in human form."
Star Danielle Brooks also brought up how the cast varies in age and body type. "It's really cool because we're all so different," Brooks said. "That's what's fun. So to see this choreography on many different body types and different ages and ethnicities is really fun."
Peacemaker airs on HBO Max every Thursday and is a raunchy and exciting look into the warped mind of Chris Smith aka Peacemaker and we can't wait to see how the season plays out.