The Suicide Squad Director James Gunn Reveals His King Shark Birthday Cake

A birthday’s not a birthday without cake and for The Suicide Squad director James Gunn, his birthday cake may just take the proverbial cake. For his birthday Gunn’s The Suicide Squad team presented him with not one, but two King Shark themed cakes and Gunn took to social media to share them with fans.

In a post to Instagram on Monday, Gunn shared photos of the two cakes. The first was of a cake designed to look like a comic book with a well-known photo of the DC character front and center reading Rumi while the second image featured a round cake with lots of comic book-style expressions — such as “Pow!” and “Bang!” — all topped with a big shark fin.

“Came into #TheSuicideSquad production office this morning to a surprise birthday greeting with goats, donkeys, sheep, and camels and these awesome #KingShark cakes,” Gunn wrote in his post. “I have the greatest team in the world!!”

First appearing in Superboy vol. 3 #0 in 1984, King Shark is a humanoid shark who has at various points had connections with the Suicide Squad, even notably being part of the team in Suicide Squad Vol. 4. A fairly popular villain, King Shark has appeared live-action several times in The CW’s Arrowverse and a report earlier this year indicated that Gunn’s The Suicide Squad could also include King Shark. It was also reported that Michael Rooker was in talks to play the character in The Suicide Squad, but Rooker himself refuted the claim.

For now, not much is known about Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, though in another recent Instagram post Gunn teased “explosions and falling structures” in the film. Gunn is hard at work on the new movie, though that’s coming at the expense of his plan for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. While some fans were hopeful that the movie’s official announcement would be revealed at San Diego Comic-Con 2019, the project only received a cursory mention by Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige.

But the writer and director took to social media to promise that his final film in the Guardians trilogy is on the way, but that he plans to finish The Suicide Squad first.

Producer Peter Safran praised that the movie, being confused as both a sequel and a reboot of the original David Ayer film, will be pure James Gunn.

“It’s called The Suicide Squad,” producer Safran previously told ComicBook.com. “It’s not Suicide Squad 2. It’s not a sequel. I will leave that alone but, yes, it’s called The Suicide Squad.”

Gunn praised the source material, possibly hinting at what version of the franchise people can expect.

“I have been an enormous fan of [Suicide Squad] in all its [DC Comics] incarnations – but to me there will always be something special about the [John Ostrander] run,” Gunn wrote on Twitter. “Black ops military tales with disposable, often forgotten super villains?! Pure perfection.”

The Suicide Squad is currently set to release on August 6, 2021.

What do you think about Gunn’s King Shark-themed birthday cakes? Let us know in the comments below.