MOVIE URBAN LEGEND: Morbius couldn't appear in Blade II because of Sony's Spider-Man's rights.

Recently, an unused scene that was filmed as a possible ending for Blade has gone viral. In it, it shows Blade noticing a mysterious figure on nearby rooftop. As the story goes, that mysterious figure was meant to be Morbius, and thus Morbius the Living Vampire was intended to be the villain in Blade II. However, the scene was not used in the final film and obviously, Morbius was not the villain in Blade II. In fact, Blade II had a whole new director than the first film in the series (with Guillermo del Toro replacing Stephen Norrington).

As the alternate ending went viral, a consistent point made in comments is that the reason why Morbius was unavailable for Blade II was because of the Sony Spider-Man rights. However, is that actually true?

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DID SONY HAVE THE RIGHTS TO MORBIUS AT THE TIME OF BLADE II?

CBR's own Rachel Roth did an article about why Morbius was not in Blade II back in 2021. In that piece, Roth noted how the rumors existed back then, as well, stating, "Rumors have circulated over the years that when Sony began developing its Spider-Man trilogy, it was unwilling to share its characters with other studios; therefore Blade's follow up films couldn't use Morbius. However, there’s been no official information corroborating those claims."

Here's the thing, I don't think we even need to get official information about it, because I am pretty positive that Sony did not HAVE the rights to Morbius at the time Blade II was in early production (so circa 2000, as Blade came out in 1998 and Blade II came out in 2002). First of all, it is important to note that what we know about Sony's rights to ancillary Marvel characters beyond Spider-Man is based on a contract that leaked from Sony as part of the 2014 WikiLeaks Sony leak.

In that contract, it notes that Sony has the exclusive film rights to "The “Spider-Man” character, “Peter Parker” and essentially all existing and future alternate versions, iterations, and alter egos of the “SpiderMan” character," as well as "All fictional characters, places structures, businesses, groups, or other entities or elements (collectively, “Creative Elements”) that are listed on the attached Schedule 6."

When you go to Schedule 6, you'll see Morbius coming in as the 373rd character that Sony has exclusive rights to, right before Morlun....

370. Monster of the Moors aka The Madman of Mansion Slade

371. Montana (I) / Jackson W. Brice

372. Montana (II) / Montana Bale

373. Morbius the Living Vampire / Dr. Michael Morbius

374. Morlun

375. Morris “The Snake” Diamond

376. Morris Forelli

377. Morty Phillips

378. Mouth

379. Mr. Brownstone / Garrison Klum

380. Mr. Nacht

However, the contract at issue was an amended one signed 2011. In other words, while Morbius was definitely exclusive to Sony as of 2011, that doesn't mean that Sony was connected to Morbius back in 1998, a year when Sony had just acquired the rights to Spider-Man from Marvel for $7 million. In other words, it is highly unlikely that Morbius was off limits for Blade II because of the Sony rights.

David S. Goyer, writer of both Blade and Blade II, noted in an interview with Jason Myers in 2000:

JM: Back in 1998, even before Blade was released, you mentioned that you were planning on using Morbius in the sequel. Still doing that?

DG: No Morbius in Blade 2. Marvel wanted to use the character for a separate franchise. There is, however, a character that COULD have been Morbius, if you look closely enough.

Note that Goyer said MARVEL wanted to use the character for a separate franchise, not that "the rights are with Sony."

However, there is an even more notable reason why Sony's rights to Morbius were not in play for when Blade II was in production - this was because Marvel had sold the rights to someone else in 2000!

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WHO HAD THE RIGHTS TO MORBIUS WHEN BLADE II CAME OUT?

As Variety reported in May 2000, Marvel signed a deal with Artisan Entertainment for Marvel and Artisan to co-produce projects featuring over a dozen Marvel characters (most famous being Captain America and Thor). The small film studio (the largest of the so-called mini-studios) had made a name for itself with films like the Blair Witch Project and Requiem for a Dream.

Marvel's Avi Arad said at the time, “Over the last year, Marvel Studios has gotten extremely aggressive in becoming the entertainment arm of Marvel Entertainment, and this joint venture shows that commitment. The companies are similar in their taste for cutting-edge entertainment and the idea here is for us to develop our product so that both companies can expand rapidly.”

Artisan's head, Amir Malin, noted, "Artisan has been all about branding in the core demographic between ages 15 and 24, a nice audience that matches perfectly with Marve. With their assets, our distribution, marketing and financing clout, this is almost like an independent studio. There will be a huge upside for Marvel on the deals, and the Marvel brand names gives us a head start because with a project like Captain America, there is a brand awareness of probably 75%.”

Among the character licensed in the deal was, "Morbius,” a Nobel Prize-winning scientist who’s turned into a vampire trying to cure a rare blood disease. The bloodsucking doc will only bite evildoers, whom he stalks at night."

Marvel tried to buy Artisan in 2003, but instead, Lions Gate purchased the company. Artisan/Lions Gate only produced two Marvel films, 2004's The Punisher and the 2005 Man-Thing, which debuted on television in the United States, but was released theatrically internationally, and eventually the options all lapsed and obviously Sony got the rights at some point.

However, Sony's Spider-Man rights couldn't have been the reason Morbius wasn't in Blade II because Sony didn't HAVE the Morbius rights then.

The legend is...

STATUS: False

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