Viola Davis might star in a Peacemaker spin-off all about Amanda Waller
It looks like we're going to find out what happened to The Wall after the events of Peacemaker
Aux News Peacemaker
Back in January, when Peacemaker fever was off the charts and the world was going crazy for John Cena’s lovable murder-doofus and his goofy friends, series creator and The Suicide Squad director James Gunn teased that he was working on a second spin-off show that would be “connected to [the Suicide Squad] universe” but not “the same genre as Peacemaker.” (In other words, not a comedy.)
That left the door open for a million different options (Weasel? A prequel about that dude Pete Davidson played? The return of Sean Gunn’s Calendar Man?), but now Deadline is saying that Warner Bros. and HBO Max are actually going with the most obvious answer—albeit one that is still a little surprising: Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller.
Waller’s role in DC Comics stories is usually to be the woman behind the scenes, pulling the strings of various players to suit her ostensibly heroic ends. That typically involves sending her personal assassin team, Task Force X (a.k.a. the Suicide Squad), to go kill people, so a solo show about her and not her pack of murderers isn’t necessarily the first thing you’d think of when you hear “James Gunn is making a spin-off of Peacemaker.”
That being said, Davis’ Waller—who appeared in both Suicide Squad movies—had her various schemes and manipulations revealed by her daughter (Danielle Brooks’ Leota Adebayo) at the end of Peacemaker’s first season, so this series could be about her suddenly finding herself on the ropes and without the resources of her elaborate spy network (let alone the Suicide Squad), which does sound like a good premise for a TV show. It’s almost like James Gunn knows what he’s doing and is good at planning out this sort of thing!
Neither HBO Max nor Warner Bros. have issued any kind of official response to this story, but Deadline seems confident in its sources, going so far as to say that Watchmen writer Christal Henry will be writing and executive producing the show. That seems to indicate that this is a real thing that’s (probably) happening and not just an idea floating around.
12 Comments
her suddenly finding herself on the ropes and without the resources of her elaborate spy network (let alone the Suicide Squad)
Given how many people — including whole governments, tons of supervillains, superheroes and, heck, the general public — have a bone to pick with her, this could be a great Jason Bourne style thriller, with the kind of lead character we rarely get to see in such roles, starring one of the greatest actors of her generation.
Right into my veins, please.
Redeeming Peacemaker into a (somewhat) heroic and empathetic character was a hell of a challenge; doing the same thing with Waller would be, like, ten times harder. But if anyone can do it, it’s Gunn.
In the comics, Waller actually has a hell of a tragic backstory (from DC Database):Amanda Blake grew up in the crime-ridden Cabrini-Green area of Chicago. At the age of 18 she married the 20-year-old Joseph Waller, and they quickly had a large family together. Her first child was Joe, Jr., then Damita, then the twins Martin and Jessie, and then her youngest child Coretta. Their lives were a financial struggle, and they relied on social programs, but they were happy. Joe, Jr. was set to go to college on a basketball scholarship until he was killed in a mugging gone wrong. Damita was raped and murdered in an alleyway on her way home from church. They knew who was responsible, but the police could not get a conviction with no witnesses. Her husband Joseph Waller set out to kill the rapist “Candyman” and both men shot each other dead. Amanda swore that the streets would take no more of her family. She worked hard to put all of her other children through college, then she put herself through college and earned a political science degree. Amanda decided to go into politics, and she approached democratic congressional candidate Marvin Collins to become his campaign director. Collins was elected thanks to her efforts, and he took her to Washington as his aide. Amanda discovered the old Task Force X files while searching through old bills, and asked to revive the Suicide Squad under her direction. She might be the second best fictional character to come out of the Cabrini-Green projects. And her backstory references the best one!I do agree with another poster here: Waller, off-balance and on the run, unsure of who to trust, is a great premise for a limited series, but it probably couldn’t hurt to sprinkle some version of that backstory throughout so she’s more than a scenery-chewing evil taskmaster. In the teleplay I’m already writing in my head, the logical endpoint sees her ascendant, having not only assembled a new Suicide Squad and mission-control staff, but also having secured some more solid future for her projects, perhaps by plundering, gutting, or razing any other metahuman-allied secret government agency (the movies don’t get into it, but the DC Universe has a TON of them) that might get in the way and/or sap resources from her.
Shit. Sorry. I had no idea the quote would format that way. Kinja!
History’s greatest monster, you are!
I always suspected as much.
Why not lean into “World’s Worst Boss”? Every episode ends with a comically brutal death of an underling.
Despicable Mom, basically
I didn’t care much for Gunn’s The Suicide Squad movie, so I was surprised at how much I loved the Peacemaker series. If this is a show about Waller on her own, without her deep state resources, that sounds fantastic. I will also accept a buddy comedy road trip with Waller and King Shark.
Her musical credit sequence will be 60 seconds of stern silence and angry glaring.
Viola Davis is the second best Amanda Waller we have gotten in TV/movies and I hope she does get her own show.First best is CCH Pounder in Justice League Unlimited.
I have no desire to see this, but I also had no desire to watch “lolz douchebags amirite?:The Series” which turned out to be fantastic TV. So I’m cautiously optimistic.