The upcoming HBO Max series Peacemaker picks up right where The Suicide Squad left off for the hyperviolent anti-hero, but while the film which introduced Christopher Smith (John Cena) to the screen was a varied ensemble, on every level the show seems to take its cues from the character at its center. And that includes the soundtrack, which writer/director James Gunn teased during a Television Critics Association summer press tour panel on Wednesday said was the one he was "most excited to create since [the first]Guardians of the Galaxy."

The theme for said soundtrack is unequivocally a very specific sort of 1980s jams — no spoilers here for which bands might be featured, but Gunn made it clear that "it really is all hair metal... A lot of 80s hair metal, but it's also a lot of modern sleaze rock and hair metal that comes out of Europe — a lot of really great bands that people don't know about."

As Gunn noted, the musical template for the show did require some curation: "I love that stuff but there's also a lot of really bad hair metal. So it was fun finding the really good stuff to inject the series with flavor, which we keep throughout the whole first season."

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That's good news for the Whitesnake and Mötley Crüe fans out there, but in additional good news for the John Cena fans out there, the first episode doesn't just feature hair metal, but Peacemaker having a little dance party while it plays — in his underpants.

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Image via Warner Bros.

Gunn mentioned that this sequence was something they shot on the first day of production on the series, with Cena following it up with the observation that "as far as my dancing goes, I've learned two things about James Gunn through our relationship: One, he's obsessed with my tighty-whities. And two, he always wants to make me dance, so you can watch this on HBO Max, and there will more than likely be tighty-whities and dancing in store."

Details for Peacemaker are a bit under wraps, but here's the official HBO Max description:

Peacemaker will explore the origins of the character that John Cena first portrayed in James Gunn’s 2021 film, The Suicide Squad – a compellingly vainglorious man who believes in peace at any cost, no matter how many people he has to kill to get it.

Peacemaker stars Cena alongside Steve Agee, Danielle Brooks, Robert Patrick, Jennifer Holland, Freddie Stroma, and Chukwudi Iwuji. The series premieres January 2022 on HBO Max.

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