suicide-squad

king-sharkIt is quickly obvious that the New 52 ‘Suicide Squad‘ was the basis for the upcoming film with the exception that instead of King Shark we have Killer Croc and director David Ayer is sharing why the change was made. While the reasoning basically boils down to CGI and budget, I would like to throw in the theory that Killer Croc is a more recognizable Batman villain than King Shark being a Flash villain. As the majority of feedback that we’ve been seeing on ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice‘ has been that Affleck’s Batman is the clear preference from the film, it wouldn’t be surprising that the studio would want to capitalize on his popularity.

But back to the CGI, Ayer had the following to say on an 18 second Twitter update for his choice in character changes in ‘Suicide Squad’:

For those who can’t watch video where they are at he basically states:

“One of the characters I was thinking about for the Squad line-up was actually King Shark. But we realized it would take a lot of work, a lot of CG work. I wasn’t quite comfortable having a full-CG character. We actually ended up going with Killer Croc, who turned out to be the right guy for the job.”

So from budget to acting concerns the CGI’d King Shark was scrapped and this was the next best option. In fact, producer Andy Horwitz had chimed in on this as well when it came to the amazing makeup that ended up turning Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje into Killer Croc:

“When approaching the character, I think the first thing that David said, and we all agreed, is we’re not having a full-CG character in this movie. It was something that, once we committed to that idea… it was quite a commitment. Because as you can see, his makeup and his prosthetics are incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it on set… You can sit one foot away from his face and stare at him and you can’t figure out if it’s real or if it’s not.”

While it is always possible that we’ll still see King Shark in a cell or mentioned for a later film, I wouldn’t be holding my breath for an onscreen cameo with this clear commitment to not including a CGI character.

Are you happy that they replaced King Shark in ‘Suicide Squad’ with Killer Croc or would you have preferred the New 52 lineup? Share your thoughts below!

‘Suicide Squad’ directed by David Ayer and starring Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto, Jai Courtney, Joel Kinnaman, Cara Delevingne, Viola Davis, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Adam Beach, Jay Hernandez, Scott Eastwood and Karen Fukahara with Ben Affleck hits theaters on August 5, 2016.

Sources: Comic Book Movie, Screen Rant

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Stuart Conover is an author, blogger, and all around geek. When not busy being a father and husband he tries to spend as much time as possible immersed in comic books, science fiction, and horror! Would you like to know more? Follow him on Twitter!