James Gunn is sharing something nice that hardcore fans of his Peacemaker HBO Max series will love: an official step-by-step guide to the opening credits dance routine! Gunn shared the dance guide on social media with the caption, “I don’t know where this came from but thanks. #Peacemaker”. It didn’t take long to find out the piece originated with an artist that goes by the Twitter handle @kdusaurus; As stated, it breaks down Peacemaker’s opening credits dance routine in full detail. It’s also drawn in a delightfully cute airplane-style instruction cartoon, featuring Peacemaker himself.
I don’t know where this came from but thanks. #Peacemaker pic.twitter.com/Sk4H0Mi5Es
Do you really taste it?
–#peacemaker #kadusdraws @JohnCena pic.twitter.com/H0JSTsKG5i
This opening credits sequence for Peacemaker has inspired fans do mimic the dance sequence in their own videos, or share it as .gifs and memes all over social media. However, the biggest honor/phenomenon was the sustained enthusiasm for Peacemaker’s opening credits across every episode of Season 1: Fans routinely posted how they re-watched the sequence every time they sat down for the show. If that’s not already some kind of TV milestone, it definitely should be.
Peacemaker has been a big success for James Gunn, HBO Max, and the DCEU franchise. The show owned the pop-culture zeitgeist for its entire run; it was such a success that even the show’s opening credits and its dance sequence have become their own viral success story. Not to mention the boost the dance sequence has given to sales of “Do Ya Wanna Taste It” by Norweigan Eurovision glam metal band Wig Wam. Now fans can skip the homework of studying Peacemaker’s opening sequence and study the material like proper students should.
James Gunn has recently told Rolling Stone that he chose the song for Peacemaker’s opening sequence dance number as an early foreshadowing of where things would lead to in the epic finale. As Peacemaker and his team stormed the barnyard stronghold of the alien “Butterlies,” the epic fight sequence was scored to “Do You Wanna Taste It”, in full. “I thought that song kind of leads to that moment,” Gunn explained.
It goes even deeper than that, as Gunn continues to explain that the song even connected to the moment when Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) gets mortally wounded on the battlefield. As Gunn explains: “Both [the lyric] ‘Do you want to taste it,’ in the sense of ‘Do you want to deal with this sh*t from these three badasses?’ but also, it all leads up to Harcourt getting wounded and choking on her own blood.”
If you’ve ever actually listened to the song (and not just distracted by the dance), the level of Gunn’s thematic depth is truly awesome…
Peacemaker is streaming on HBO Max.