Though it was meant to really get the ball rolling in Sony's Spider-Man Cinematic Universe, Morbius seems to have had the opposite effect. Reviled by critics, the movie has been declared dead on arrival by many, though audiences are admittedly warming up to it more. Its current fate is also eerily similar to another "horror" blockbuster movie.
The 2017 reboot of The Mummy was intended to jumpstart Universal's Dark Universe reimaginings of their classic horror monsters. Unfortunately, the film's awful quality and box office woes doomed it and any plans going forward. Though it ironically might not suck as much, Sony's vampire Marvel movie could have a similar fate.
Why Did The Mummy 2017 Flop?
The Mummy was primed for a reboot in 2012, with the successful version of the series starring Brendan Fraser having come to an end. Tom Cruise was soon cast as the new lead, though he ironically ended up as one of the problems. Cruise was given carte blanche by the studio to approve the script and force rewrites, which he apparently did, along with commanding the director on set. He also attempted to downplay the Mummy herself while aggrandizing his role.
Producer and story maker Alex Kurtzman later noted that the end result was not at all the type of movie he intended, and it shows. Cruise's role is clearly written for an actor decades younger, making the idea that he rewrote the script to look "cooler" more likely. Said script is horrendous, with abysmal pacing and constant setup of things unrelated to the main plot. The movie was far more interested in setting up the Dark Universe as a whole than simply showing why the Mummy was such a threat. There was also nothing in way of real scares, an unfortunate side effect of the film being an absolutely generic action movie in order to make the most money.
Speaking of which, The Mummy was considered a flop, making $410 million on a budget of $125-195. Though this would make it seem as if the movie at least made a microscopic profit, it actually lost the studio almost $100 million when all was said and done. Thus, the Dark Universe that it desperately tried to set up was shut down as Universal went in other directions. The sleeper hit Invisible Man and the upcoming movie Renfield seemed to have changed things around for the Dark Universe, but another studio failed to learn lessons from The Mummy.
Morbius Makes the Same Mistakes as The Mummy 2017
Morbius, in many ways, feels cut from the same cloth as The Mummy. It mostly eschews actual horror in favor of simply being another "superhero" movie, much as The Mummy was a generic action flick. It also has a rather hackneyed way of expanding Sony's Spider-Man Universe, similar to the poor use of Russell Crowe's Hyde to establish the broader Dark Universe. There are also the numerous cuts and heavy changes from the trailer that were made to Morbius, similar to the egregious script changes in The Mummy.
One huge difference is money, however. The Mummy cost way too much for as bad as it was, and it was unlikely that the studio would've ever made that much money on it unless it was an absolute smash. Morbius, on the other hand, does actually have a bit more defense among the general audience, plus the budget was way lower. Made on around $75 million-plus, Morbius has already made over $86 million worldwide. While not a huge level of success by any means, it has the potential to turn something of a profit. It also has the built-in excuse of the pandemic and constant delays to fall back on.
Hopefully, Morbius isn't a sign of Sony's future, and the studio should look at it as something to improve from. In the case of the originally planned Dark Universe, however, it's thankfully as dead as the Mummy herself.
To see how Morbius is similar to 2017's The Mummy, Morbius is in theaters now.