James Gunn and Sylvester Stallone must have struck up quite the friendship during their time working together on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 over at Marvel Studios, with the legendary action star recently being announced as a late addition to the cast of The Suicide Squad. While the 74 year-old isn’t expected to play a major role having joined the production so late in the game, there’s an exciting theory making the rounds already that he’ll be lending his distinct vocal talents to King Shark.
Clearly his time working on 1995’s disastrous Judge Dredd wasn’t enough to put Stallone off the superhero genre, with the Rocky and Rambo legend also set to appear in next year’s R-rated original story Samaritan. Not only that, but by joining the DCEU’s soft reboot, he’s now emulated his Dredd successor Karl Urban by starring in adaptations of Marvel, DC and 2000AD comic books.
In an incredibly coincidental turn of events, the only people to have featured in movies based on properties from all three companies are the two actors who’ve played Mega-City One’s most famous lawman. Then again, there’ve only been three 2000AD adaptations in cinema history, with 1990 sci-fi horror Hardware being the third and most frequently forgotten.
Still, it’s a unique record and Stallone actually beats out Urban here as he’s boarded both the mainline MCU and DCEU, while The Boys‘ Billy Butcher only played the villain in Bruce Willis actioner Red, which was originally published by DC subsidiary Homage. It would have seemed impossible to think just a few years ago that Sylvester Stallone would appear in both of the industry’s premiere superhero franchises, but by joining The Suicide Squad, he’s even managed to set a record while doing it.
