Peacemaker Season 2: Everything We Know — Including About The New Opening Dance Number

Peacemaker (played by John Cena) gets a harsh review from the Justice League's Green Lantern/Guy Gardner (The Rookie's Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl/Kendra Saunders (The Last of Us' Isabel Merced) and Maxwell Lord (Sean Gunn) in the first trailer for Season 2 of the DC Studios series, seen below.

The trailer also reveals that Peacemaker is no favorite of new ARGUS boss Rick Flag Sr. (played by MCU vet Frank Grillo, who first voiced the character in Max's Creature Commandos). After all, Peacemaker aka Chris Smith did kill Flag's son (Joel Kinnaman) in the 2021 film The Suicide Squad.

Peacemaker — which premiered on Jan. 13, 2022, and earned a TVLine reader grade of "A" — was renewed for Season 2 in February 2022, just hours before its Season 1 finale dropped. But since then, series creator James Gunn was named co-CEO of DC Studios (alongside producing partner Peter Safran), Gunn decided to tackle writing and directing his new DCU's first feature film, Superman, and the timetable for so many things got waylaid by the writer and actor strikes of 2023.

Here is everything we know about Peacemaker Season 2, including confirmed changes to the crowd-pleasing opening credits....

Gunn wrote all eight episodes of Peacemaker Season 1 and directed five (including the premiere). The Season 2 renewal announcement initially said that Gunn would direct and write all Season 2 episodes, of which there are again eight.

But in March 2024, Gunn wrote on Threads, "In the interest of getting the show out there, I won't be able to direct them all (only some)." He also confirmed he had written all eight episodes after calling Episode 8 "a banger" in a separate Threads post in January 2024.

One of the "some" that Gunn directed involves Frank Grillo's character, who is described further down.

Greg Mottola (Superbad, The Daytrippers), meanwhile, directed Episodes 2 and 3 of the second season. "Ever since seeing Daytrippers back in the '90s at Film Forum in NY, I've been a huge Greg Mottola fan — through Superbad and so much more," Gunn shared on Threads. "When we needed a director for Episodes 2 and 3 ... he was the first person I thought of. Can't wait for you guys to see what we're cooking!"

Way back in August 2022, Gunn said the plan was for Peacemaker Season 2 scripts to be done and the cameras to get rolling "in 2023." Two months later, though, Gunn was named co-CEO of DC Studios. Not long after that, he announced he would be writing Superman: Legacy, the first feature film in his and Safran's new DC Universe. Come March 2023, Gunn decided he would also direct Superman — and then came the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.

Cameras started rolling on Superman in March 2024; once that film wraps, "I'll go straight from Superman to Peacemaker," Gunn said.

On March 9, 2024, Jennifer Holland, who plays Peacemaker's Emilia Harcourt, confirmed in her Instagram comments that filming would begin in the summer of 2024.

Filming wrapped in late November.

Peacemaker Season 2 was originally in queue to come out after the Viola Davis-led Amanda Waller TV series that was announced in January 2023 as part of Gunn's new DCU.

But a lot has changed since then, as Gunn penned and filmed his Superman feature film.

Waller still remains in "active development," while Peacemaker was scheduled to release after Superman hits theaters — meaning, after July 11, 2025.

Peacemaker Season 2 is now locked and loaded for a Thursday, Aug. 21 premiere.

Details are thus far scarce on the Season 2 Peacemaker storyline, but "It essentially picks up where Season 1 left off," Gunn has said, "with a couple minor differences."

Front man John Cena of course returned for Peacemaker Season 2, as did Freddie Stroma (as antihero fanboy Vigilante), Danielle Brooks (as Amanda Waller's daughter Leota Adebayo), Jennifer Holland (as Agent Emilia Harcourt), Steve Agee (as Economos) and Nhut Le (as Judomaster).

Among non-human cast, Peacemaker's pet eagle, Eagly (voiced by Dee Bradley Baker), also will return for Season 2.

MCU vet Frank Grillo (aka Brock Rumlow/Crossbones in multiple Marvel films) will play Rick Flag Sr. — the new head of ARGUS and father of the Suicide Squad films' late Rick Flag Jr. (who was played by Joel Kinnaman). Grillo also voiced Flagg Sr. in Max's Creature Commandos, as Gunn is committed to having voice actors also play the same roles in live action when possible.

Additionally, SNL alum Tim Meadows will play ARGUS agent Langston Fleury, Michael Rooker will play Red St. Wild, an eagle hunter with Eagly in his sights, David Denman (The Office) will fill an undisclosed role, and Sol Rodriguez (Star Trek: Picard) has been cast as Sasha Bordeaux (a Batman ally in the DC comics).

In a word, "Yes."

Barging into each episode with the first yelps of Wig Wam's "Do Ya Wanna Taste It," the 90-second song-and-awkward dance number — choreographed by Charissa-Lee Barton, directed by Gunn and filmed with the cast over one day in a high school auditorium – instantly became iconic and unskippable.

But due to several storyline-dictated "exits" in Season 1, Season 2 will kick off its episodes with something different. "Also, we have a lot of new cast members" including Tim Meadows, Sol Rodriguez, Michael Rooker and a more prominent Judomaster (Nhut Le), Gunn explained to EW.com in May 2025, "so I knew that I needed to do a new dance."

As for whether Wig Wam's "Do Ya Wanna Taste It" will remain the opening needle drop....  "I really went back and forth an awful lot," Gunn told EW. "And at the end of the day, I decided that we use a new song that's a little bit more about what the season's about."

"I just wanted to do a good job with the [new] dance sequence," Gunn added. "I don't know if [it] is going to one-up the first, because no one expected it... and you just can't replicate that."

The 2023 film Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom marked the final entry in the old, pre-Gunn/Safran DC Universe that had been unspooling over the past decade or so.

Starting with TV's (animated) Creature Commandos (which debuted Dec. 5 on Max) and then the film Superman (in theaters July 11), Gunn and Safran's vision for the new DCU is taking shape.

But seeing as Peacemaker — already an offshoot of Gunn's The Suicide Squad, and as suggested by the Aquaman/Jason Momoa and Flash/Ezra Miller cameos in its Season 1 finale — was squarely set in the old DCU, what's the plan for Season 2?

For one, Gunn has revealed that said Justice League cameo will not be canon to his new DCU. "They don't exist yet," he explained.

When a fan asked Gunn on Threads, "Won't it be confusing having a [Peacemaker] Season 2 [in a] different universe? Why not just have it be a new show?," Gunn answered: "Because it's my favorite thing to do, it's the biggest original Max show ever, and I have a way in. It wont be confusing."

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