<\/p>\n
From creating the Guardians of the Galaxy<\/em> franchise\u2019s mixtapes to making the obscure Iggy Pop\/Teddybears nugget \u201cPunkrocker\u201d one of the songs of the summer via Superman<\/em>, DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn has an impeccable record when it comes to mixing music with superhero universes. Peacemaker<\/em>\u2018s just-concluded second season, with its killer Foxy Shazam theme song (\u201cOh Lord\u201d) and its finale performances by both Foxy and the long-haired rock band Nelson<\/a> (playing the very deep cut \u201cTo Get Back to You\u201d), was no exception. Gunn jumped on a Zoom with Rolling Stone<\/em> to talk about the season\u2019s music and some broader DCU topics. (Some spoilers ahead \u2014 and to see what Matthew Nelson had to say about his band\u2019s appearance, check out our new interview<\/a> with him and Gunn.)<\/p>\n Why Nelson? Why this song? How did it happen?<\/strong> More from Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n You\u2019re about to change the course of that song\u2019s life.<\/strong> You had that one in your pocket already?<\/strong> Was it always locked into your head that you would have them perform the song on the show?<\/strong> But the idea to put Foxy Shazam in the show was a last-minute addition. I became friends with Eric Nally, the singer of Foxy Shazam. And I was like, you know what, we\u2019re gonna be shooting Nelson anyway. What if we had just a couple shots of them and the reveal of them at this concert? And really what it all is leading to is the reason the song is playing is because this was the song where Harcourt and Peacemaker fully came together, kind of as boyfriend-girlfriend at the end of the show.<\/p>\n Are you thinking about ways to use songs in cool ways in other upcoming DCU projects? Or are you leaving that to the individual creators?<\/strong> I\u2019ve become a sleaze-metal guy because of Peacemaker<\/em>, which is a journey that started before this actually. But I\u2019m really a punk-rock guy. All day long I\u2019ve been listening to my 2025 list, which is a lot of [Canadian punk band] Pup and [Irish punk band] Sprints and then also a lot of other modern alternative, a lot of hip-hop. There\u2019s this guy named Russell \u2014 that\u2019s an amazing hip-hop artist. There\u2019s a lot of cool stuff out.<\/p>\n In the upcoming stuff \u2014 the Supergirl<\/em> movie and the HBO Max show Lanterns<\/em> \u2014 are you thinking that way about songs?<\/strong> Regarding the vicious twist at the end of Peacemaker<\/em> from what seemed to be a happy ending \u2014 first of all, what\u2019s wrong with you<\/strong>? Should people expect that thread to be enormous going forward?<\/strong> Since you said you\u2019re setting up the semisequel to Superman<\/em>, Man of Tomorrow<\/em>, should people expect John Cena\u2019s fate, Peacemaker\u2019s fate, to be addressed in that movie?<\/strong> So, to be clear, you\u2019ve made a key part of the DCU going forward about a government official abusing their power by having masked thugs come in the middle of the night and expel innocent people from the planet.<\/strong> This war, this thread \u2014 will we be seeing this in things like Lanterns<\/em> and Supergirl<\/em>? Or is this really your <\/em>arc and not necessarily the larger story?<\/strong> Are there other big arcs for this phase?<\/strong> People are wondering, by the way, if James Mangold\u2019s just-announced deal means that the Swamp Thing movie he was planning for you is dead.<\/strong> So you\u2019re hopeful on that still?<\/strong> Are you going to announce a Checkmate show with the new team formed at the end of this season? Or are we just left to wonder how this is going to carry forward?<\/strong> Poor Chris, poor Peacemaker. That planet he\u2019s on doesn\u2019t sound so uninhabited. There\u2019s something moaning in the background. <\/strong> Best of Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for RollingStone’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From creating the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise\u2019s mixtapes to making the obscure Iggy Pop\/Teddybears nugget \u201cPunkrocker\u201d one of the songs of the summer via Superman, DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn has an impeccable record when it comes to mixing music with superhero universes. Peacemaker\u2018s just-concluded second season, with its killer Foxy Shazam theme song […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2082576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[206284,353697,41332,366157,326584,391690],"class_list":["post-2082575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-dcu","tag-foxy-shazam","tag-james-gunn","tag-matthew-nelson","tag-peacemaker","tag-songs-of-the-summer"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/James-Gunn-on-\u2018Peacemaker-Season-Twos-Ending-and-the-DCUs.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2082575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2082575"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2082575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2082577,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2082575\/revisions\/2082577"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2082576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2082575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2082575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2082575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
I picked the song first. As you know, when I\u2019m putting together songs for Peacemaker<\/em>, I\u2019m working from a massive list \u2014 at this point it\u2019s a couple thousand songs that I think are Peacemaker<\/em>-like songs. When I write a scene that utilizes a piece of music, sometimes I\u2019m sort of inspired by the music to write the scenes, but a lot of times I\u2019m like, \u201cThis is a good place for a piece of music. What should I listen to?\u201d And so I go through my list. For this moment, it just seemed the perfect moment for it. And I truly believe that Nelson album, [2010\u2019s] Lightning Strikes Twice<\/em>, is a great album. I mean, nobody knows it. But the whole album is a pretty great example of melodic rock. And the song is fantastic.<\/p>\n
Yeah, for sure. Like with the Foxy Shazam song, it really is just a fucking great song.<\/p>\n
No. I mean, I knew the song. It was one of my favorite Foxy Shazam songs. And I\u2019m a really, truly an enormous fan of the band. But I listened to a lot of different songs to try to figure it out, and I really didn\u2019t know what I was gonna do. Was I gonna use [Wig Wam\u2019s] \u201cDo You Wanna Taste It\u201d again? Was I gonna use something else? And it really had the effect that I thought it would, which is at first everybody was complaining about, \u201cOh, I like the old song better. I like the old intro better.\u201d And now, as we go into the eighth episode, the most common comment I get on threads is, \u201cWow, I didn\u2019t like it as much at first, but now I like it even more.\u201d And it is such an emotional song. It really works in this scene as well.<\/p>\n
No, but it was always locked in my head that I was going to use the song at the end of the show. In the same way there was always this concept that, you know, \u201cDo You Wanna Taste It\u201d has various different meanings, but it ends up being kind of about the blood in Harcourt\u2019s mouth at the end of episode eight. And this song would be about the gathering together of these damaged souls in [new team] Checkmate. So that was always the plan that I would use this song.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a mix. There\u2019s sometimes some hackneyed use of music and I really don\u2019t like it. I really don\u2019t need to hear \u201cBallroom Blitz\u201d in another movie for as long as I live. Love the band, but don\u2019t need to hear \u201cBallroom Blitz\u201d in a movie ever again. So when something like that comes up, and it comes up pretty often in these different projects and they\u2019re like, \u201cOh, James will like this because it\u2019s Seventies music.\u201d . I\u2019m like, I don\u2019t like Seventies music. That was what fit the Guardians. I mean, I do <\/em>like Seventies music. I like all music.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s songs in both of those things. But I don\u2019t give a shit if there\u2019s songs in something or not. For me, I use songs like \u2014 listen, Superman<\/em> to me was a score movie. There\u2019s just the one song that is strangely probably the biggest sort of hit song I\u2019ve had out of a show that wasn\u2019t Wig Wam. You know, maybe \u201cCome and Get Your Love\u201d from the first Guardians<\/em>. But everybody knew \u201cCome and Get Your Love.\u201d It was like a rediscovery of a song from a new perspective<\/p>\n
Listen, this journey\u2019s not done.<\/p>\n
Yeah. <\/p>\n
No, no, no. But people should expect that the way that the military and Rick Flagg and everybody are working together and they\u2019ve created a probably illegal prison for metahumans on another dimension is gonna be a part of DCU stories going forward. And not just a tertiary, \u2018Oh, this is Arkham\u2019 \u2014 it\u2019s a part of the stories. There\u2019s an escalating war, obviously, that\u2019s going on between the government and metahumans. And this is a part of it.<\/p>\n
[Grins.]<\/em> It\u2019s just totally fiction, Brian. This is, like, something that can never happen on our planet, but that\u2019s the beauty of things like comic books \u2014 you can explore things that would never, ever happen on our world.<\/p>\n
No, no. Both those things are worked in. We knew both of those stories were a part of what we originally put together, so they\u2019re part of the overall tapestry, but they\u2019re also their own thing. Supergirl <\/em>especially is a space adventure. It\u2019s like Guardians<\/em>. Lanterns<\/em> is its own thing. There\u2019s just a longer, sort of a bigger world we\u2019re building with all these different pieces and they do all come together and intersect sometimes in a story fashion and sometimes just in a, you know, \u201chere\u2019s another piece of the world\u201d fashion.<\/p>\n
Yeah, yeah. Lanterns<\/em> is really important in setting up things.<\/p>\n
No, no, it doesn\u2019t. No.<\/p>\n
Yeah, I mean, yeah, totally. Absolutely. Yeah. We\u2019ve talked to him. He\u2019s still invested. So we\u2019ll see. Some things take a long time. We\u2019ll see what happens.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll find out as time goes on. It\u2019s a mystery.<\/p>\n
Doesn\u2019t sound good, does it? There\u2019s a comic series called Salvation Run<\/em>. So the story is very different, but that\u2019s where the concept is from. And so there\u2019s some things \u2014 some of those elements are definitely a part of the future.<\/p>\n