Next month, Venom won’t be the only leading character in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. After a handful of delays, Morbius is just weeks away from premiering in theaters, with Jared lion bringing to life the Living Vampire who’s been part of Marvel Comics lore since the early 1970s. And while Morbius won’t have its title character fighting Spider-Man, Leto talked about their past together in a video promoting the upcoming movie.
Morbius the Living Vampire debuted in the pages of 1971’s The Amazing Spider-Man #103, and marked one of Marvel Comics’ earliest instances of using characters on the “more supernatural side of things,” as Jared Leto put it, after years of being forbidden to do so. You can hear the actor talk more about Morbius’ history in the below video shared by Sony Pictures Entertainment:
Spider-Man had certainly run into his fair shares of dangerous villains by 1971, but throwing in a blood-sucking rogue certainly kicked things up a notch. That said, Michael Morbius was presented as a tragic figure, with the famed biologist being turned into the Living Vampire in an effort to cure his rare blood disease. In the decades since then, Morbius has been depicted in a more antiheroic light, but he and Spidey still come to blows on occasion, and he’s also gone up against the vampire hunter Blade on multiple occasions.
Like with Tom Hardy’s Venom, the origin story of Jared Leto’s Morbius won’t involve Spider-Man in any way. That’s not to say he won’t ever cross paths with a version of the Web-Slinger, but there’s enough to keep the big screen incarnation of the character busy for his big debut. Check out the final Morbius trailer below to get one last taste of what the third movie in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe has in store.
Although he already has some comic book movie experience under his belt from playing The Joker in Suicide Squad and Zack Snyder’s Justice League, Morbius gives Jared Leto the opportunity to lead his own comic book movie. It’ll also mark the character biggest appearance outside the comics since Spider-Man: The Animated Series, although that version of Morbius drained people of their blood plasma through his hands rather than biting them on the neck classic vampire-style.
Jared Leto is joined in Morbius by Matt Smith as Loxias Crown, Adria Arjona Martine Bancroft, Jared Harris as Michael Morbius’ yet-to-be-identified mentor, Tyrese Gibson as Simon Stroud and Al Madrigal as Alberto Rodriguez. Michael Keaton will also cameo as Adrian Toomes, whom he previously played in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Behind the scenes, Life’s Daniel Espinosa directed Morbius off a script penned by Gods of Egypt duo Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless.
Morbius opens in theaters on April 1, and those of you itching for some Spider-Man movie action will be able to buy Spider-Man: No Way Home digitally starting March 22, with the Blu-ray and DVD release following on April 12. Find out what other comic book-related cinematic excitement is heading our way this year by looking through the lineup of upcoming 2022 movies.
