Sun. Apr 28th, 2024


Sony’s Twisted Metal series, starring Anthony Mackie, is one of Peacock’s most-binged comedy series in the streamer’s history.

Twisted Metal, Peacock, comedy

After a concerning lead-up to the show’s release, Sony‘s Twisted Metal is doing donuts around audience expectations! The car combat-oriented comedy series is Peacock’s “most-binged” comedy premiere, with the average account watching roughly three episodes per sitting, with some opting to knock the entire season out in one glorious shot. The Twisted Metal Peacock premiere is an outstanding sign for Sony’s future adaptations of popular gaming properties.

While NBCUniversal neglected to share the number of people tuning in for Twisted Metal, it stands to share similar success to Bel Air, The Best Man: Final Chapters, Poker Face, and Based on a True Story as one of Peacock’s top five original series. According to Nielsen, a global leader in audience insights, Twisted Metal locked and loaded 400M viewing minutes in the weekend following its July 27 premiere.

Based on an original take by Deadpool and Zombieland screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, this adaptation of the Twisted Metal franchise will center on a motor-mouthed outsider who is 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 trigger-happy 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.

Anthony Mackie (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) stars in the series as John Doe, “a smart-ass milkman who talks as fast as he drives. With no memory of his past, John gets a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make his wish of finding community come true, but only if he can survive an onslaught of savage vehicular combat.” Neve Campbell (Scream) plays a character named Raven, Thomas Haden Church (Wings) is Agent Stone, “a cold and unyielding post-apocalyptic highway patrolman who rules the roads with a silver tongue and a twisted iron fist, prosecuting even the smallest crimes with the harshest of judgments. Agent Stone will stop at nothing to bring law and order back to the Divided States of America, and will kill anyone in his path who defies his power.”

Stephanie Beatriz (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) is Quiet, “a ferocious, badass car thief who acts purely on instinct – you couldn’t stop her any more than a manhole could stop a volcano. Coming from a community that oppressed her into silence, Quiet’s wish is to find her place in this dark, chaotic world. But when she becomes clouded by her need for revenge, Quiet forms an unlikely, antagonistic bond with John Doe”.

Also in the cast are Mike Mitchell (The Tomorrow War) and Tahj Vaughans (P-Valley) as buddies Stu and Mike, “the Rosencrantz & Guildenstern of this world, and together often find themselves to be more followers than fighters”; Lou Beatty Jr. (A Million Little Things) as Tommy, “a grizzled and weathered cartographer who knows the dangers of the Wild Midwest”; and Richard Cabral (Mayans M.C.) as Quiet’s overprotective brother Loud. AEW wrestler Joe Seanoa, a.k.a Samoa Joe, plays the iconic video game character Sweet Tooth, with Will Arnett (Arrested Development) providing the character’s voice.

Cobra Kai writer Michael Jonathan Smith is the showrunner. Reese and Wernick executive produce the Twisted Metal series alongside director Kitao Sakurai, Smith, Mackie, Arnett, and Marc Forman of Electric Avenue, Jason Spire of Inspire Entertainment, Peter Principato of Artists First, Asad Qizilbash and Carter Swan from PlayStation Productions, and Hermen Hulst, Head of PlayStation Studios. The series is co-produced by Sony Pictures Television, PlayStation Productions, and Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group.

Have you watched Twisted Metal yet? If you have, let us know what you think in the comments section below.

By Dave Jenks

Dave Jenks is an American novelist and Veteran of the United States Marine Corps. Between those careers, he’s worked as a deckhand, commercial fisherman, divemaster, taxi driver, construction manager, and over the road truck driver, among many other things. He now lives on a sea island, in the South Carolina Lowcountry, with his wife and youngest daughter. They also have three grown children, five grand children, three dogs and a whole flock of parakeets. Stinnett grew up in Melbourne, Florida and has also lived in the Florida Keys, the Bahamas, and Cozumel, Mexico. His next dream is to one day visit and dive Cuba.