The release date for Sony's Morbius movie is growing closer, with the studio releasing more early looks at the cinematic debut of the Living Vampire. Said sneak peeks are fittingly dark, feeling more at home with horror flicks than Hulk and Iron Man. The movie is also supposedly another entry in Sony's still amorphous Spider-Man movie universe, and fans' suspicions of who that Spider-Man is may be true.
A recent vignette for Morbius has elements that only heighten the potential for the film, as well as possibly the Venom movies, to be in the same universe as The Amazing Spider-Man duology. From tone to a few keywords, the possibilities are real for Andrew Garfield to once again be Sony's Webslinger, and that may be set in stone with the release of a much more bloodthirsty character's movie.
The Morbius Vignette Emphasizes Horror
In a short video titled The Lore of Morbius, leading star Jared Leto discusses the history of the Morbius character, something the movie seems to mostly be embracing. Morbius, much like the character of Ghost Rider, was introduced at Marvel Comics at a time when the industry as a whole could finally begin embracing horror concepts again after the Comics Code Authority forbade them. Morbius is, of course, more scientific than supernatural, but he's still a hungry vampire out for blood nonetheless.
The footage shown, which is also from the movie's previous trailer, only highlights further how much the movie will take from the comic book character's grisly tone. Though he's effectively starting as a conflicted anti-hero in this movie, moving past full villainy automatically like Venom did in his two solo films, Morbius is still seen ravaging powerless humans in a horrific manner that Bela Lugosi could only dream of. This tone fits the character well, and the movie definitely should not feel like just another interchangeable superhero blockbuster. The tone is also not unlike that of a set of other Sony movies, ones that starred the hero that first gave Morbius stardom.
Morbius Is Baiting Viewers With an Amazing Spider-Man Connection
It's worth noting that in the vignette, Leto states that Morbius was originally an "Amazing Spider-Man" villain. This is accurate, given that he debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #101, but it'd logically make more sense to just call Morbius a "Spider-Man" villain when he started out. This, when combined with the tone, only further fuels the fire of fans who believe that Morbius will be set in the Amazing Spider-Man movie continuity. These films also had fairly dark tones when compared to the previous Sam Raimi flicks and especially the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Spider-Man, all while ironically having easily the funniest and quippiest Wall-Crawler seen on the big screen yet. A vicious scientific vampire hunting for blood would fit right into this world, a world that might be too grim for Maguire or Holland's Peter Parker.
That's not even taking into account all of the other "evidence" that something is brewing with Sony and Andrew Garfield. For instance, in the multiversal Spider-Man: No Way Home, Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man tells Andrew to remind himself that he's "amazing" no less than three times. When combined with Andrew-Peter's desire to "fight an alien," it's only logical that Sony might put together a throwdown between this Spider-Man and a certain Lethal Protector in a third movie. In regards to Morbius, the film's trailer showed graffiti calling Spider-Man a murderer. Though some suspected this might reflect the MCU Spidey supposedly killing Mysterio, it's much more likely that it references Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man no longer pulling his punches with foes after the trauma of Gwen Stacy's death.
Though it might seem like fans are reading more than they should into what's actually there, another point to remember is that Morbius, once slated for a Summer 2020 release date, was eventually pushed back to Jan. 2022. This didn't happen, however, and the release is now scheduled for April 2022. Many suspect that after the acclaim Andrew Garfield's incarnation of Spider-Man received in No Way Home, Sony read the room and went back to make plans official. Thus, the (hopefully) final delay for Morbius is due to additional scenes being filmed that include overt connections to The Amazing Spider-Man. When combined with the vignette, it certainly feels like viewers are being baited at this point, with the return of Andrew Garfield quickly becoming something of an openly debated secret.