A new King Shark poster for The Suicide Squad parodies Will Smith’s new film, King Richard. Now playing in theaters and streaming on HBO Max, James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad had already broken records for an R-rated movie during the pandemic era, raking in $4.1 million from its early preview screenings alone. Considering its R-rating and dual streaming release, this is an incredibly positive early sign for The Suicide Squad’s box office performance.
Gunn’s entry to the DCEU is a quasi-reboot/sequel to David Ayer’s divisive Suicide Squad from 2016. Alongside a huge lineup of newcomers, Gunn opted to bring back a few holdovers from the previous film. They are Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), and Amanda Waller (Viola Davis). Despite drawing interest from Gunn, Will Smith’s Deadshot was unable to return due to scheduling conflicts. Smith can instead be seen in another Warner Bros. film coming to HBO Max, King Richard, in which he plays the father and coach of tennis superstars Venus and Serena Williams.
One of the DC film's fan-favorite newcomers is a humanoid shark voiced by Sylvester Stallone. Though his name is Nanaue, he is better known as King Shark. Since a poster for King Richard was just released last month, The Suicide Squad capitalized on the connection in the best possible way with a King Shark poster parodying Smith’s upcoming film. Check out the poster below, followed by the original:
Click here to see the King Shark poster.
Click here to see the King Richard poster.
Even though The Suicide Squad has already made its highly anticipated debut, its promotional campaign is clearly not done producing little gems like this King Shark poster. Ever since he made his first appearance in a trailer for The Suicide Squad, King Shark has been one of the most popular newcomers to Task Force X and one of the characters fans would least like to see die. Considering Gunn’s numerous teases about the film’s many deaths, it would be wise not to get too attached to King Shark, despite how endearing he may be.
It’s nice to see The Suicide Squad's promotional campaign playfully teasing Smith with the same energy its titular team of supervillains would with one another. To add to the comical connection, King Richard was the very project that actually prevented Smith from reprising his role as Deadshot, which adds an extra layer to this parody. King Shark and the rest of Task Force X’s nutty newcomers can now be seen in action in The Suicide Squad.
Source: The Suicide Squad/King Richard
