This is still happening?!
Jared Leto is returning to the world of comics books — this time for Sony’s extended universe instead of DC’s.
Leto has just been cast to star as Morbius the Living Vampire in the upcoming Morbius spinoff film.
We reported on the announcement of the Morbius the Living Vampire movie last November, saying that we were unsure if the property would actually see the light of day (it’s become pretty popular for studios — especially Sony and Warner Bros. — to announce projects just to see how people will react to them and then decide on a later date if they want to move forward).
With a star and now a director — Daniel Espinosa — it looks like this is happening.
Espinosa is best known for 2012’s Safe House and 2017’s Life. He also did the Cold-War thriller Child 44 in 2015, and is currently working on a war drama entitled Red Platoon.
Jared Leto, of course, played the Joker in Suicide Squad to mixed results. His acting career has been rather hit-or-miss since then, as he’s sometimes criticized for being too over-the-top (i.e. Blade Runner 2049). Maybe Morbius will be the role that reals him back in.
Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama, writers of Netflix’s Lost in Space, are penning the script. Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach and Lucas Foster will serve as producers.
Dr. Michael Morbius was first introduced into the Spider-Man comics in 1971. He was working on a scientific experiment with his own human blood when things go horribly wrong. He’s fought Spider-Man countless times, but eventually became more of an anti-hero similar to Venom rather than a full-on villain.
Speaking of Eddie Brock, Sony has not yet announced a release date for Morbius yet as they’re likely waiting to see what kind of reaction Venom has and how much it makes at the box-office. Given that their cinematic universe — one that’s based around Spider-Man characters but seemingly won’t actually have Spider-Man in it — is pretty experimental at this point, I don’t think it’d take much to sink their plans (like, remember how 2017’s The Mummy was supposed to kick-off Universal’s Dark Universe? How'd that turn out?)
Yet, if Venom does well, I could also easily see this being fast-tracked, so who’s to say. Sony has also recently announced a Silk movie that’s in development, which is about a Korean-American heroine who gets bit by the same radioactive spider that Peter does, so it looks like we have more Spider-verse movies potentially coming our way.
What do you think of this news? Do you think Jared Leto is a good fit for Morbius? Are you surprised this movie is being made in the first place? Let us know in the comments below!
'Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse' introduces us to Miles Morales in first trailer