The Peacemaker Detail That Made Shooting The Suicide Squad So Hard
Making a blockbuster superhero movie is a difficult job for anyone, and that's especially true when the blockbuster in question is this year's upcoming The Suicide Squad. Not only did director James Gunn have to create a successful standalone sequel to a critically panned movie — 2016's Suicide Squad has a dismal 26% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes — but he insisted on using mostly practical effects to pull it off, even for scenes featuring a CGI King Shark (voiced by Sylvester Stallone) tearing people apart. Gunn and his crew also had to employ subtle visual trickery in one place viewers may not think to look. According to Gunn himself, this was especially true for Peacemaker, the violent anti-hero played by John Cena.
On the surface, Peacemaker would seem like one of the least difficult Squad members to get right, but his costume ultimately required some unexpected visual effects. Here's what Gunn said about filming the vigilante character for The Suicide Squad and how they worked around the issues.
Peacemaker's helmet gave the film crew trouble
When director Danny Shepherd asked James Gunn about the logistics of filming Peacemaker's extremely reflective helmet, Gunn tweeted back, "Peacemaker's helmet is a damn mirror ball, & we need to remove me & the crew from every single shot in which we use it, in the movie & in the show. We shoot a full wraparound plate of every set (most of which are fortunately practical) to put in the helmet when needed." Removing any signs of a crew or camera from reflective surfaces in movies is a trick going back to the silent film era, but it must have still been daunting, especially considering Peacemaker's sizable role in The Suicide Squad as well as his HBO Max Peacemaker spinoff series.
Nevertheless, the effort appears to have worked, even if we won't see the full result for months. Gunn recently tweeted that, in nearly three decades of directing, The Suicide Squad was the most fun he'd ever had making a movie, as he let his creativity take the reins and he loved working with the cast and crew. The Suicide Squad will debut in theaters and HBO Max on August 6.