James Gunn Reveals Batista Was His First Choice For Peacemaker

During an appearance on the Howard Stern Show (via F4WOnline), director James Gunn revealed that John Cena was not his first choice to play the title character in the DCU series Peacemaker. Gunn originally intended to get Dave Bautista to play the part. Gunn previously worked with Bautista in the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy.

He said: “It was Dave Bautista, who’s a good friend of mine. Obviously, he plays Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy. And I wrote the character of Peacemaker for him and we offered him the role, but he was offered two other movies and we weren’t paying him a lot, and so he had to go where the money was. And I had always been a fan of John since Trainwreck especially. I thought he was so, so funny in that movie that I met with him. We talked. We became instant, instant friends. And since then, I’ve worked with him more than any other actor.“