Morbius (film)

Morbius is a 2022 American superhero film based on the character from Marvel Comics. Produced by Columbia Pictures in association with Marvel Entertainment, Arad Productions, and Matt Tolmach Productions, and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing, it is the third film in Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU). Jared Leto stars as Dr. Michael Morbius, alongside Matt Smith, Adria Arjona, Jared Harris, Al Madrigal, and Tyrese Gibson. The film was directed by Daniel Espinosa and written by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless. In the film, Michael Morbius and his surrogate brother Milo (Smith) become living vampires after curing themselves of a rare blood disease.

There were previously two notable attempts to adapt the character of Michael Morbius into a cinematic form since 1998, those being a role in the Blade franchise as an antagonist and having a solo film produced by Artisan Entertainment, neither of which ever came to fruition. After announcing plans for a new shared universe of films inspired by Spider-Man related characters beginning with Venom (2018), Sony began developing a film based on Morbius. Sazama and Sharpless had written a script by November 2017, and Leto and Espinosa officially joined in June 2018. Work on the film began at the end of the year with further casting, ahead of production starting in London in February 2019. Filming was confirmed to have been completed by June 2019, with reshoots happening in Los Angeles the following February. Jon Ekstrand was hired to compose the film's score.

Morbius premiered at the Plaza Carso in Mexico City on March 10, 2022, and was theatrically released in the United States on April 1, after being delayed several times from an initial July 2020 date, primarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The film was a critical and commercial failure, receiving criticism for the writing, visual effects, and post-credits scenes, although Smith's performance received some praise. The film grossed $167.5 million worldwide. It became the subject of Internet memes mocking its reception and quality; the popularity of said memes led Sony to re-release the film in theaters the following June, to another commercial failure. It later received five Golden Raspberry Awards nominations, including Worst Picture, and ended up winning Worst Actor for Leto and Worst Supporting Actress for Arjona.

Plot

At a hospital in Greece, 10-year-old Michael Morbius welcomes his surrogate brother Lucien, whom he renames Milo; they bond over their shared blood illness and desire to be "normal". Seeing Michael's potential, their adoptive father and hospital director Nicholas arranges for Michael to attend medical school in New York while he focuses on caring for Milo.

25 years later, Michael publicly declines a Nobel Prize for his work with artificial blood. His colleague Martine Bancroft discovers he has secretly captured dozens of vampire bats from Costa Rica in the hope of splicing their genes with his own to cure his condition. Michael receives funding from Milo to outfit a private mercenary vessel in international waters with his equipment. While the cure works, it transforms Michael into a vampire who kills and drains the crew of their blood after they attack him out of fear. Once his bloodlust subsides and he regains his senses, a horrified Michael erases all CCTV footage of his experiment before contacting authorities and jumping overboard.

Michael returns to New York and discovers he now has superhuman strength, speed, and echolocation, with his vampire bats treating him as one of their own. To control his bloodlust, he subsists on his artificial blood as it gradually ceases to satisfy his needs. FBI agents Simon Stroud and Al Rodriguez investigate Michael's victims and deduce his involvement. Milo learns that Michael is cured but becomes furious when Michael refuses to cure him as well. While checking on a hospitalized Martine, Michael finds a dead nurse, drained of her blood. Believing he was responsible, he attempts to escape before being arrested by Stroud. In prison, he is visited by Milo and realizes Milo took his cure and killed the nurse. Michael escapes to confront him. An unrepentant Milo urges Michael to embrace his powers as he has. Unwilling to hurt his brother, Michael flees.

Michael meets Martine, acquires a new lab, and develops an antibody against vampirism to stop Milo; he also plans to use it on himself. Stroud and Rodriguez find footage of one of Milo's attacks and, believing Michael's vampirism to be spreading, release it to the media. Nicholas recognizes Milo and pleads with him to stop. Angered by Nicholas' perceived preference for Michael, Milo mortally wounds him; Michael arrives too late to save him while Milo also mortally wounds Martine. Martine dies in Michael's arms, forcing him to drink her blood. Michael summons an army of bats to restrain Milo and inject the antibody. Milo dies and Michael flies off with the bats, mourning his loved ones and embracing his identity as a vampire. Unbeknownst to him, Martine is resurrected, having ingested a drop of Michael's blood as he fed on her.

In two mid-credits scenes, Adrian Toomes is transported to Michael's universe from his own. Surmising that Spider-Man is somehow responsible, Toomes approaches the fugitive Michael and suggests that they form a team.

Cast

• Jared Leto as Dr. Michael Morbius:
  A scientist suffering from a rare blood disease whose attempts to cure himself afflict him with a form of transgenic vampirism, gaining all of the superhuman abilities but none of the superstitious weaknesses associated with vampires. Leto was drawn to the character's struggle with his disease and the moral implications of a hero who has a thirst for blood. He found the role surprisingly challenging since it was less character-driven than his prior performances and closer to his real-life personality, not requiring his well-known method acting approach. Charlie Shotwell portrays a young Michael.
• Matt Smith as Lucien / Milo Morbius:
  Michael's surrogate brother, a wealthy man originally named Lucien and nicknamed Milo by Michael (due to sharing a bed with many previous boys named Milo), who suffers from the same rare blood disease as he does. When Milo gains the same abilities as Michael, he embraces his identity as a vampire whole-heartedly. Smith was originally announced to play comic book character Loxias Crown / Hunger, but this was later changed to a significantly different character based on Michael himself. After turning down other superhero film roles, Smith joined the film due to Daniel Espinosa's involvement and encouragement from his former Doctor Who castmate Karen Gillan, who portrays Nebula in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Espinosa encouraged Smith to give a bold, villainous performance. Joseph Esson portrays a young Milo.
• Adria Arjona as Dr. Martine Bancroft: A scientist and Michael's colleague. Arjona said the character was "the smart one in the room" and took inspiration from politician and activist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
• Jared Harris as Dr. Emil Nicholas: A mentor and father figure for Michael and Milo who runs a facility that looks after people with incurable illnesses.
• Al Madrigal as Al Rodriguez: An FBI agent hunting Michael, and Stroud's partner.
• Tyrese Gibson as Simon Stroud:
  An FBI agent hunting Michael, and Rodriguez's partner. Gibson noted that the character is white in the comic books, and the producers "made him black" to cast Gibson. While Gibson described Stroud as a "superhero" with a "hi-tech weapons-grade arm" in the film, all scenes featuring this arm were cut. Gibson signed a three-picture deal when he joined the film.

Corey Johnson portrays mercenary Mr. Fox, while Michael Keaton makes a cameo appearance in the mid-credits scenes as Adrian Toomes / Vulture, reprising his role from the MCU film Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017). J. K. Simmons filmed a cameo reprising his role as J. Jonah Jameson, but his scenes were cut.

Production

Development

Artisan Entertainment announced a deal with Marvel Entertainment in May 2000 to co-produce, finance, and distribute several films based on Marvel Comics characters, including Morbius, the Living Vampire. Previously, the character was set to appear in Blade (1998), portrayed by director Stephen Norrington in a cameo appearance ahead of a larger role in a sequel. However, the character was cut from the first film and not introduced in Blade II (2002) after Norrington chose not to return for that film. In May 2017, Sony announced plans for a new shared universe featuring Spider-Man-related properties beginning with Venom in October 2018; this was later titled "Sony's Spider-Man Universe". In July, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) director Jon Watts expressed interest in featuring Morbius and Blade in the then untitled Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), believing that the character's dark tone could work well within the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). That November, Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless submitted a script to Sony for a Morbius film, after a "secret development process" at the studio. Jared Leto became "loosely attached" to star in the title role, but would not commit to the film until he was happy with its direction; Leto asked to personally meet with several director candidates.