Peacemaker BTS Video Likens Opening Credits to 'Claymation in Human Form' — Plus, How Did Alan Tudyk Help?

Do ya really wanna bigger taste of Peacemaker‘s incredibly rewatchable opening credits?

HBO Max has released a “making of” video (watch above), in which series creator/director James Gunn, choreographer Charissa Barton and several cast members provide commentary and BTS anecdotes over rehearsal footage of the 90-second song-and-dance sequence.

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Barging into each episode with the first yelps of “Do Ya Wanna Taste It” (by the glam metal band Wig Wam), the opening credits, which were filmed over one day in a high school auditorium, start off with John Cena’s antihero joined by Freddie Stroma’s Vigilante and and Danielle Brooks’ Adebayo. A few beats later, Jennifer Holland’s Harcourt and and Chukwudi Iwuji’s Murn march in from the wings, followed by Steve Agee’s Economos, Elizabeth Ludlow’s Keeya and everyone else from the early episodes’ cast.

As the sequence builds to a close, Cena hoists Nhut Le’s Judomaster onto his shoulders (with help from a digitally removed harness), while the CGI Eagly hits his mark and fans his wings wide.

Barton says in the video that the “Peacemaker Groove” (as she has dubbed the angular dance style) is “rooted in modern dance combined with a bit of street style,” with a sprinkling of “Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton” for good measure. Or as Holland aptly puts it, “It’s a little bit like if Claymation was in human form.”

As Gunn told our sister site Rolling Stone, part of his goal with the opening credits was to “vanquish the Skip Intro button” that pops up on-screen. “People work really hard on these things, and you want the audience to be paying attention when their names go by.”

Fun fact! When Barton was workshopping the early concept from home, her husband Alan Tudyk (Resident Alien) performed the moves in video clips she would send to Gunn.

“Alan had learned most of the moves in our [apartment], oftentimes late at night as I was working on the choreo,” she shared on Instagram, along with a photo of Tudyk on-set as a stand-in for Cena. “If I asked him to try something at 1 am he’d say yes without fail.

“We have awesome footage that may or may not ever escape the archive,” she teased, “but it exists and that makes me so happy.”

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