John Cena had his first major superhero role in The Suicide Squad when he played The Peacemaker under the direction of Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn. Both Cena ad Gunn enjoyed working together on the project so much that the writer decided to write a Peacemaker spinoff series which HBO Max and Warner Bros. picked up even before The Suicide Squad was released. With Peacemaker‘s HBO Max premiere arriving soon, Cena has finally opened up about just how tough it has been to get the cast in a major DC or Marvel role, especially after having been rejected by both before landing this gig.

John Cena was rejected twice by Marvel and DC

John Cena as Peacemaker
John Cena as Peacemaker

“I can’t tell you how many superhero roles I’ve been rejected for. Shazam is certainly one. There was a brief try at the Deadpool universe, rejection,” Cena said on the Happy, Sad, Confused podcast. He had auditioned for Cable in Deadpool 2, losing out on the role which ultimately went to Josh Brolin and the titular role in Shazam! would go to Zachary Levi. “Shazam! was Dikembe Mutumbo. There was a few in the Marvel universe, rejected. But you know, I kept trying.”

By the looks of it, the Shazam! rejection might have stung slightly more than others as Cena did express a lot of interest in the lighthearted superhero role. “I think like a child, so Shazam was super interesting to me,” Cena explained. “And when I read the script, a lot of times, like… this is the thing, I don’t just chase ‘I want to do this,’ I always have to read it.”

James Gunn's Peacemaker
James Gunn’s Peacemaker

John Cena was always open to working with James Gunn. Before The Suicide Squad, Gunn was best known for Guardians of the Galaxy and its sequel but had also helmed titles like Slither and Scooby-Doo, which had earned him preemptive trust from people like Cena. “James Gunn is the only person who gets a free pass,” Cena said. “The only reason he gets a free pass is his reputation as a storyteller. He just does not let up, he claws at every piece, and I know it’s gonna be good, because he starts from a blank page and that’s it. But I always read it, I always read the story to make sure one, I like it, and two, it falls within my skillset. I do want to challenge myself, but I don’t want the first time I do something to be on screen for a paying customer. I want to get practice and perform at a level that’s consumer quality.”

With The Suicide Squad, Cena was always prepared for the worst as expectations from the previous superhero auditions had led him to believe that it wouldn’t really come to happen. “I read all those scripts, and I read all those parts, and I was like, ‘Man, I really think I could add to this,’ and just rejection after rejection after rejection after rejection,” Cena said. “But I guess that’s what… the lows make the highs high. And the crazy thing was, I wasn’t first on the list for Peacemaker. James had a long list, and it happened by accident, too. He’s like, ‘Hey, I’m in Atlanta, I’d just love to come and talk to you for a second.’ We sat down in his pre-production office, which was literally like a war headquarters where you could see the whole movie in posterboard taped around his office, and he started talking about Peacemaker, and he’s like, ‘I think you should do it.’ So I’m not rejected? They usually say, like, ‘Hey, love you man, but we’re just going in another direction.'”

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