DC Fans Roast Michael Strahan for Calling Birds of Prey a Marvel Movie

The state of superhero blockbusters seems to be in an endless state of flux, with an array of franchises and cinematic universes hitting the big screen. For some people, it might be difficult to keep all of the different sagas straight — something that manifested in an awkward way during a recent episode of The Today Show. During Tuesday’s episode, co-host Michael Strahan interviewed the cast of Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), the latest DC Extended Universe movie that is set to hit theaters this weekend. Midway through the interview, Strahan began to ask which characters the cast would like to see join the Birds of Prey in the sequel — but accidentally referred to the film as being part of the wrong cinematic world.

“Obviously, there are so many characters in the Marvel universe,” Strahan began, before quickly being corrected by the film’s cast members.

While the snafu is understandable, the awkward moment has gotten quite a lot of attention from DC fans since the issue first aired. Granted, the “DC vs. Marvel” rivalry has evolved over the years, with many arguing that both are making forward momentum in different ways when it comes to superhero movies.

“I think the rivalry lives in the fans more so than it does in us,” Henry Cavill, who plays Superman in the DCEU, explained in 2017. “For all of us who are making these movies or I’m sure for the comic book artists and writers, there have been rivalries in the past, but now it’s just about celebrating these characters, certainly for us. I mean, I’m sure when it comes to deep finances, when it comes to DC and Marvel there’s always going to be competition, yeah, but they need each other to survive as well. If one goes down that means superheroes aren’t popular and you don’t want that because if one goes down the other goes down.”

Even then, there definitely are some differences between the two onscreen worlds — namely, that DC has a much more standalone approach to each of its big-screen ventures.

“I don’t want to spoil too much,” Birds of Prey screenwriter Christina Hodson recently confirmed to ComicBook.com. “I would say this is definitely a standalone movie. We always wanted it to be a story that feels like its own thing, its own contained story that if you’re a fan and you’ve seen some of the movies before, if you’ve already met Harley Quinn, but also if you’re brand-new to this universe, you can also come in and feel perfectly at home here. As a fan myself, I would like to hopefully list it with some funny threads that people are gonna like. But yeah, we’ll have to wait and see.“

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) arrives in theaters on February 7th.