Peacemaker Finale: Why Didn't All the SPOILER Actors Show up for That Big Cameo?

02/17/2022 02:50 pm EST

James Gunn's Peacemaker finale shocked DC fans with a big cameo from some major DC Comics characters. (MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW!) Peacemaker (John Cena) and his team shed blood, sweat, and tears fighting the battle to stop the body-snatching Butterflies and their food source "the cow," only to find that the Justice League shows up to the battlefield late in the game, once all the dirty work has been done. However, DC fans noticed some discrepancies in Peacemaker's Justice League cameo – namely the absence of certain big actors from Zack Snyder's Justice League cast. 

Indeed, it was a big thrill for DC fans to see The Flash movie star Ezra Miller and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom star Jason Momoa both show up onscreen in James Gunn's Peacemaker TV series – but it was also a curiosity that Gal Gadot and Henry Cavil didn't also appear in the scene, despite the fact that their Wonder Woman and Superman characters did.

Well, in a post-finale interview with Variety James Gunn explains why Gal Gadot and Henry Cavill didn't appear in Peacemaker's Justice League cameo, claiming that it wasn't really part of the conversation between himself and Warner Bros., as "I really thought it was going to be just Jason. And Ezra was more like the extra thing because I found that he was interested in doing it."

In other words: James Gunn began with some very modest hopes about which Justice League actors he could get for Peacemaker (Jason Momoa) and was thrilled to get a twofer with Ezra Miller's Flash. Behind the scenes, it makes that Gal Gadot and Henry Cavill weren't in the mix for a Peacemaker appearance. Gal Gadot has been busy with a new baby while working to promote projects like Netflix's Red Notice and 20th Century Studios' Death on the Nile adaptation. Henry Cavill's fate as Superman – and the character's overall place in the DCEU franchise – have been subjects that DC/WB has been happily side-stepping for years. That's all to say: we wouldn't expect WB to pull those kinds of massive dangling threads together just so Peacemaker could snag the full Justice League movie roster for a cameo. 

Gunn was far more cryptic when it came to the subject of why Batman and Cyborg weren't part of the Justice League team roster, hinting that Warner Bros. had some mandates about using those characters.  

Peacemaker is now streaming on HBO Max. 

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