Peacock’s set to launch the live-action post-apocalyptic comedy Twisted Metal, based on the Playstation video game, on July 27, 2023. The half-hour series stars Anthony Mackie (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) as John Doe, a character writer, executive producer, and showrunner Michael Jonathan Smith describes as a charismatic man just looking for a place to belong.
The cast of the 10-episode season also includes Stephanie Beatriz (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) as Quiet, Oscar nominee Thomas Haden Church (Sideways) as Agent Stone, and Joe Seanoa (aka Samoa Joe) as Sweet Tooth – voice provided by seven-time Emmy nominee Will Arnett. Neve Campbell, Richard Cabral, Mike Mitchell, Lou Beatty Jr., and Tahj Vaughans guest star.
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, star and executive producer Anthony Mackie said that his generation grew up on video games and that those games now have a sentimental value to him. Mackie also described his character, John, who isn’t in the game.
“John is a ‘milkman, going from city to city and picking up and dropping off packages. He’s a loner. That’s the big thing – I loved Twisted Metal growing up. I had the game, and I would play the game. I wasn’t good at it because the original game was basically bumper cars. There were basically cars just shooting each other and blowing each other up with nondescript characters, but characters, nonetheless, that we never got to see. And what we did was we took [that] reality and gave it a backstory and gave it characters who you can really relate to in a television sense,” said Mackie.
Showrunner Michael Jonathan Smith (Cobra Kai), a longtime fan of the video games – he bought Twisted Metal: Black when he was 16 – offered a brief description of Mackie’s Twisted Metal co-stars’ characters. Smith said Quiet is an enigmatic woman who “throws John’s world for a loop after a chance encounter, forcing the two together and changing both their lives for the better.” Agent Stone is described as a psychotic highway patrolman who sees the world in black and white. And Sweet Tooth is a deranged, murderous clown who possesses a surprising soulfulness.
Kitao Sakurai directed multiple episodes. Deadpool‘s Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick executive produced along with Will Arnett and Marc Forman (Electric Avenue), Jason Spire (Inspire Entertainment), Peter Principato (Artists First), Asad Qizilbash and Carter Swan from PlayStation Productions, and Hermen Hulst, Head of PlayStation Studios.
The series is produced by Sony Pictures Television, PlayStation Productions, and Universal Television.
Peacock released this description of Twisted Metal:
Twisted Metal is a high-octane action comedy, based on an original take by Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick and written by Michael Jonathan Smith, about a motor-mouthed outsider offered a chance at a better life, but only if he can successfully deliver a mysterious package across a post-apocalyptic wasteland. With the help of a badass axe-wielding car thief, he’ll face savage marauders driving vehicles of destruction and other dangers of the open road, including a deranged clown who drives an all too familiar ice cream truck.
