They may have similar abilities, but there’s definitely a difference between the DC characters Deadshot and Bloodsport. And on Monday, the Twitter account for Warner Bros. UK mixed up the two.
Idris Elba, the actor who brought Bloodsport to life in James Gunn’s “The Suicide Squad” turned 49 years old on Monday, prompting a slew of online birthday wishes. But, in their well wishes to the actor, the Warner Brothers UK Twitter account — Warner Brothers owns DC and its characters — mistakenly identified him as Deadshot, the character originally played by Will Smith in David Ayer’s “Suicide Squad.”
“Some may know him as Stringer Bell, others as Deadshot… Happy Birthday @idriselba!” the tweet originally read. The tweet was later corrected, but plenty of fans nabbed a screenshot of the original, and the jokes flowed freely.
“The ones who know him as Deadshot might have a problem,” Zaki Hasan tweeted.
The misstep was particularly ironic as, prior to “The Suicide Squad” releasing, rumors had circulated that Elba was indeed replacing Will Smith as Deadshot, after Smith had confirmed he wasn’t returning for the soft reboot. Even Elba wasn’t surprised at them.
“Those rumors would be natural because Will said he wasn’t joining the second movie, so it was quite natural for audiences or fans to think that I would be taking over the Deadshot character because the Deadshot character lived in the other movie,” Elba told Entertainment Tonight. “But I was really satisfied that James didn’t want to do that, I didn’t want to do that. Deadshot is a great character and Will slays it, so I was really keen the audience and fans kept that rumor going, because… surprise.”
As of this writing, Elba had not acknowledged the flub on Twitter, nor had “The Suicide Squad” director James Gunn.
You can check out more jokes about the flub below.
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