As soon as it was announced long after shooting on The Suicide Squad had wrapped that Sylvester Stallone had joined the ensemble, a lot of fans instantly guessed he’d be lending his distinct vocal delivery to King Shark.
After all, it was too late in the day for him to be playing a live-action character, and even though Steve Agee had been credited as Nanaue, the actor also played a part in the flesh as John Economos, which is without even mentioning Sly’s connection to James Gunn having appeared in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
Unsurprisingly, King Shark became an instant cult favorite from almost the second the first full-length trailer for the R-rated DCEU blockbuster dropped, and that’s only intensified now that the movie is playing in theaters and HBO Max. As you can see below, fans are absolutely obsessed with the hulking hybrid, with many calling him The Suicide Squad‘s highlight.
If you’d told someone a couple of years back that they’d one day be watching a superhero movie where Sylvester Stallone voices a shark with a dad bod who wears shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, claims he could blend into a crowd if he wore a fake mustache and literally tore people in half, you’d probably be called crazy.
Just as well that ‘crazy’ is very much the operative word when it comes to The Suicide Squad, then, and it’s obvious that Gunn was given the creative freedom to do whatever he wanted no matter how insane it might be, with Stallone’s King Shark a huge part of that thanks to his bizarrely charming and lovable nature, even if he’s fond of human flesh.