Last week, news broke that Michael Rooker (of Yondu fame) was in talks to play King Shark in Suicide Squad 2 a.k.a. The Suicide Squad. It was an exciting possibility that would see the actor reunite with his Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn. However, it looks as though Michael Rooker will not, in fact, be playing King Shark in Suicide Squad 2 as the actor recently took to social media to refute the report. Take a look:
Well, that certainly seems to be a pretty clear statement from Michael Rooker. By screenshotting the original report and captioning it as he did on his Instagram, Michael Rooker is essentially declaring that it is inaccurate and he is not in talks to play King Shark in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. So, if anyone was working on some fan art for this casting, you may want to pump the brakes.
Now, it is worth asking some questions about what this refutation could mean, because from Slither to Super to the Guardians of the Galaxy films, Michael Rooker has acted in every feature film James Gunn has directed. Therefore, it would make sense for him to join the director once again for The Suicide Squad to keep that streak going.
Also, the original report about Michael Rooker being in talks to play King Shark in The Suicide Squad didn’t come from some random person on Reddit, it came from a legitimate publication. In addition, there was an earlier report that King Shark would indeed be one of the members of the new team in the film. So what gives?
It could just be the The Wrap got it wrong (it happens) and Michael Rooker is, as he indicated, not in talks to play King Shark in the film or maybe that talks fell apart. It’s also possible that Michael Rooker is fibbing, as we’ve seemingly seen recently with Matt Smith regarding Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
Or, given their working relationship, Michael Rooker is reuniting with James Gunn for The Suicide Squad, but King Shark is not the character he will be playing. David Dastmalchian is reportedly cast as Polka-Dot Man and Daniela Melchior as Ratcatcher, and Idris Elba as not Deadshot, but there are presumably other characters Michael Rooker could take on in the movie.
At this point, given his fairly unambiguous social media response to news of his casting, I just wouldn’t expect Michael Rooker to play the humanoid shark in The Suicide Squad. The sequel, which has been described as something of a relaunch with only a handful of the original actors/characters returning is currently in pre-production so hopefully we’ll hear some more casting soon.
The Suicide Squad, with or without Michael Rooker, is scheduled to arrive in theaters on August 6, 2021. That’s a ways off, though, and you need to be entertained until then, so check out our 2019 release schedule to see all the movies you’ll want to check out this summer.
