James Gunn Has Explained Why King Shark’s ‘The Suicide Squad’ Design Differs From The Comics And How He Got Stallone For The Role

After Warner Bros. finally unveiled the long awaited Red Band trailer for The Suicide Squad, fans immediately fell in love with King Shark, who was later revealed to be voiced by Sylvester Stallone. However, DC Comics fans couldn’t help but notice that King Shark differs from his comic book origins, for which he’s typically a hammerhead shark. So as he often does, director James Gunn took the time to walk curious fans through his design process for the character. According to Gunn, they actually did try to emulate King Shark’s hammerhead look, but some things just look better on a comic book page than they do on camera. Via Twitter:

“I did tests with the hammerhead design, which I love & originally thought I’d use. But having eyes on the sides far apart made it incredibly awkward shooting interactions with other people. You couldn’t really see him looking at the other person & the shots tended to be too wide. But I was insistent on the dad-bod from the beginning as I didn’t think King Shark would have such mammalian body structure.”

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) March 27, 2021

As for how Gunn got Stallone to voice the role, it didn’t take a whole of convincing:

“I wrote this role for you in The Suicide Squad. It won’t take too much of your time.”

“Oh yeah”

“Yeah. It’s a big, kinda chubby, human-eating shark.”

Laughs. “Anything for you, brother.”

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) March 27, 2021

You can check out the rest of the thread below. Gunn also explains why it’s pure coincidence why King Shark’s look matches the design for the Harley Quinn animated series. According to Gunn, The Suicide Squad was shooting a full year before Harley made her debut on the show, which began on the now-defunct DC Universe streaming service and has since moved to HBO Max.

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) March 27, 2021

Yes, I realize he's cute: strange since we actively avoided neotenic designs used on cute anthropomorphic beasts to elicit that evolutionary "awww." Think Baby Groot/Yoda. His eyes are small, not big. His mouth is big, not small. And his head is tiny. https://t.co/N7tXDCPT7j

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) March 27, 2021

Yes, King Shark is wearing golf shorts. Those things around him are Clyrax.#TheSuicideSquad pic.twitter.com/3nCKoEMR0A

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) March 27, 2021