James Gunn's New Response To Peacemaker Season 3 Question Has Me Hopeful Changes Are Coming

DCU co-chief James Gunn recently revealed his Superman sequel Man of Tomorrow wrapped filming, and the post sent fans down a speculation rabbit hole theorizing that Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor ends up on the prison planet Salvation. Given that location’s formal introduction in Peacemaker’s twisty Season 2 finale, and that Frank Grillo’s Rick Flag Sr. appears in MoT, fans are definitely still curious to learn whether John Cena’s vigilante is getting a Season 3 or not. And James Gunn’s latest response is a thinker.

No, like, I’m talking very literally in this case. When asked on Threads if there was any chance for Peacemaker Season 3, Gunn shared this no-word response:

Let me hurry up and play the devil's advocate Negative Nancy for this one before jumping into the far more enjoyable speculation. Gunn sharing a contemplation emoji on social media is hardly proof of anything, much less a confirmation that a new season of a TV show is potentially in the works. It could just be a blanketed indication that anything technically has a chance of happening.

As well, Gunn may have just been sharing a sense of confusion over why a fan asked about Peacemaker Season 3 as a comment under a fan's post arguing that Superman's hair is supposed to be blue (as "proven" by color shading in specific instances). Gunn responded in snarky agreement, saying he'd get Man of Tomorrow's VFX team to give David Corenswet's on-screen 'do a new hue, and joked that fans can look forward to a Superman Blue Cut coming soon. I admittedly like the idea of Gunn being genuinely confused by a left-field Peacemaker inquiry coming in.

Now let's get ride of all that negativity and focus on the optimistic side of things, where we can freely assume that the filmmaker was goading followers into getting excited about seeming more from Christopher Smith, Adebayo, Harcourt, Vigilante, Judomaster and there rest in new episodes. But as other fans also suggested in the comments, I don't think that Peacemaker Season 3 is the ideal way in, and I think the organization founded in the Season 2 finale should be where the DCU goes next.

Peacemaker's crew made the hugely important comic book connection in Season 2's finale by founding the covert ops outfit Checkmate. The agency was first created by Amanda Waller as a branch of Task Force X, but was later taken over by Harry Stein, and it's run using a chess-based hierarchy, with the leaders (Kings/Queens) tasking Rooks to plan out nefarious missions, which Bishops are required to carry out, while Pawns serve in a support position.

Gunn previously addressed the idea that Checkmate connects the stories of Peacemaker and Lanterns, so it's technically possible fans could see characters from the prior HBO Max series popping up in the current one. But even if not, it seems like the org could also be utilized in other projects down the line.

Considering Gunn & Co. are spinning the Jimmy Olsen-starring HBO Max series The People vs. Gorilla Grodd as a spinoff, it's not against the rules of normalcy that DC execs could want another signature streaming series in the mix that doesn't require an all-new cast and all-new characters. And I think most would agree that, at least in terms of the storytelling so far, Chris Smith didn't have a ton of open-ended storylines to dig into for a third season of Peacemaker, so it makes sense to me that the goal (if it exists) would be to make it more of a group-based project.

But just in case everything I said above is completely off-base, I'd like to also quietly agree with the one commenter who (assumedly jokingly) guessed that the emoji was a clue that the DC villain The Thinker will be a Season 3 antagonist. The internet should always be so clever.

Without a real clue of what John Cena's Chris will be up to in the coming years, we're hoping to see him in an upcoming DC movie or two, including Man of Tomorrow, which is hitting theaters in 2027 on July 9, 2027.