Irresponsible Speculation On Stallone’s Role In Upcoming James Gunn Films
Today James Gunn and Sylvester Stallone let the cat out of the bag that Stallone has a role in Gunn’s upcoming Warner Bros./DC movie The Suicide Squad. The news came via each of their respective Instagram accounts, with Stallone first posting a video saying he was on his way to film a scene for the movie, then Gunn confirming with a photo of the two of them together.
Stallone previously surprised everyone watching Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 when he appeared as Stakar Ogord, leader of a band of Ravagers, a similar role to Yondu’s. In the Marvel comics, Stakar was Starhawk, one of the members of the original Guardians lineup. Stallone’s crew in the movie is made up of most of that original team — Charlie-27, Martinex and Aleta Ogord.
Warning for rampant speculation below that might be considered a spoiler if you haven’t read any of the comics featuring Peacemaker and if I turn out to be right.
Of course neither Gunn nor Stallone said anything about the role Stallone is playing in The Suicide Squad, but the photo shows them in a bar with the late 1960s-early ’70s vibe in the painting behind the bar. Stallone is wearing a red and black plaid shirt reminiscent of a lumberjack, which doesn’t fit into my theory — that he is playing the father of John Cena’s character Peacemaker.
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In the comics, Peacemaker’s name is Christopher Smith, and he is haunted by visions of his dead father, a former Nazi concentration camp commandant. The timing of the movie would have to update Stallone’s role to a more modern terrible moment in time or justify why Peacemaker is in his senior years but looks like he does. Maybe have Peacemaker’s father be someone who committed atrocities in Vietnam like Lt. William Calley Jr., as his platoon (and others from both Company C and Company B) did in the My Lai Massacre.
The bar and the lumberjack outfit throws me off, though. Still, I stand by my half-assed prediction.
Since this makes two James Gunn movies in which Stallone has appeared as a relatively minor character, I am holding out great hope that he returns at Stakar Ogord in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, whenever that starts filming. And that his entire Ravager crew comes with him and we get see some action from the (maybe in the MCU, definitely in the comics) OG Guardians. In the last movie, that team was Michael Rosenbaum as Martinex, Ving Rhames as Charlie-27 and Michelle Yeoh as Aleta. Hell, I want to see that team get their own spin-off movie.
Back in April, Rosenbaum posted a photo to Twitter in response to Gunn’s virtual watch party of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. That photo showed Rosenbaum with motion capture dots all over his face (Martinex is a crystalline humanoid being) along with Gunn, Stallone and Yeoh. Although the photo was clearly from the filming of Guardians 2, many less reasonable sites on the Internet called it confirmation that Stallone would return in Guardians 3, but that has not been confirmed or even hinted at by anyone involved.
