James Gunn Has Explained How His ‘Peacemaker’ Series Drew Inspiration From ‘Better Call Saul’

After watching the trailers for HBO Max’s Peacemaker, which picks up the story of John Cena’s character following the aftermath of The Suicide Squad, the show appears to be a mad-cap action comedy complete with a majestic eagle sidekick who join Cena’s Christopher Smith on his quest to achieve peace by any means (a.k.a. shooting everything in sight). One comparison you probably would not make is the more exploratory prestige drama like AMC’s hit Breaking Bad and its prequel series Better Call Saul, but there’s exactly where Peacemaker writer and director James Gunn went in a new interview.

While talking to The Hollywood Reporter, Gunn cited Vince Gilligan’s meth drama as a major influence on his “douchebag” superhero series:

“It’s the ability to take its time in telling the story,” Gunn tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Both Saul and Chris are kind of sad-sack characters who are really good at one thing and then really bad at a lot of other things. So I think it’s really just taking that incredibly smart dialogue, that relaxed nature of grounded life and then mixing that with the other things that I wanted to do with the show. But I love Better Call Saul. I think it’s one of the best shows on TV, if not the best.”

Of course, this raises significant questions like is Eagly the show’s Jesse Pinkman or Mike Ehrmentraut Or perhaps even its Kim Wexler Fortunately, there won’t be long to wait to find out because the first three episodes of Peacemaker are now streaming on HBO Max.