The care and creativity with which James Gunn creates VFX-driven characters is one of the things that has helped his comic-book adaptations resonate with mainstream viewers. Because Gunn strives for a magical realism that brings those digital characters to life, there are just as many fans of Rocket and Groot from the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy as there are for, say, Black Widow or Ant-Man. They deliver genuine performances in Gunn's films, sometimes holding together the most emotional passages.

With his switch to DC Comics, The Suicide Squad, the director follows this trend by creating three different VFX villains who fans will be talking about for weeks after seeing the film. One of them is a colossal weasel. One of them is a little rat. The other is the King Shark, who we've seen in the trailers and is adorable (but dangerous). When we asked Gunn about the design of King Shark and the visual effects process after seeing The Suicide Squad and speaking with him afterwards, he said: “We started developing him very early on, and he was a much, much harder character to develop than Groot or Rocket. Because a shark is, innately, not a character that walks around. He's not a mammal, so he probably doesn't have a six pack. (Laughs) And so developing him from the very beginning as this sort of lovable, but incredibly dangerous, galoot was very, very difficult. I really wanted him to be able to walk and move in a way that was as believable as a King Shark could be. There's a thing about this movie where I wanted it to be sort of a magical realist film. Where, you know, in this world of the DCEU, it's weird to see a walking shark, but not as weird as it is in our world. Because they've seen a man fly around in the sky. So they've seen those types of things. … And so, to keep that sort of magic about the characters and the movie, while also keeping it gritty and grounded, was important to me. But it was a really big process.”