Warning: SPOILERS lie ahead for Morbius
Morbius represents everything wrong with Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. The third installment of the franchise, following the hit movies Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Morbius stars Jared Leto as Dr. Michael Morbius, a celebrated scientist suffering from a rare blood disease since childhood. In the hopes of curing both himself and his best friend, Morbius elects to afflict himself with a form of transgenic vampirism, giving him all of the superhuman abilities associated with traditional vampires without any of their weaknesses, save for the need to consume blood.
Morbius underwent a lengthy development cycle, with plans for a movie based on the Marvel Comics character going back to the days of Wesley Snipes’ Blade trilogy. After being announced as part of the SSU, Morbius still took a long time getting to theaters, in part due to reshoots conducted nearly a year after the original wrap on production. Also, the COVID-19 pandemic caused release date shifts for both Morbius and the Venom sequel. When it finally opened on April 1, 2022, the movie performed worse at the box office than most Marvel movies, including the other two SSU installments.
Morbius also took a beating from critics, with the movie receiving a mere 17-percent approval rating through reviews posted on Rotten Tomatoes. It is not only the worst-reviewed entry in the SSU franchise but also the worst-reviewed superhero movie since 2015’s Fantastic Four reboot. Does it actually deserve this distinction? Let’s take a look at why Morbius is not just a bad movie but sums up everything wrong with Sony’s Spider-Man Universe.
Morbius’s Spider-Man Universe Connections Are Worse Than Venom’s
In the lead up to its release, the confirmation that Venom would be set within its own universe led to much confusion among both comic book fans and movie audiences who were even somewhat familiar with the character. After all, his origins stem from interacting with Spider-Man upon his arrival on Earth, with the character’s appearance specifically coming from the hero’s black suit. One of the biggest points of general criticism for Venom upon its release was the lack of connections to Marvel’s web-slinger, with some people feeling the character worked better when paired with Spidey.
Regardless, Venom began forging its own path, furthered by the 2021 sequel Venom: Let There Be Carnage. Both movies were hits with moviegoers, if not critics, in spite of being separate from Sony’s Spider-Man movies in collaboration with Marvel Studios and its Marvel Cinematic Universe. Spider-Man connections in the Venom movies have been non-existent outside of the Venom 2 post-credits scene (and a counterpart post-credits scene in Spider-Man: No Way Home) bringing the character briefly into the MCU to witness Tom Holland’s Spidey being outed on TV.
Morbius, on the other hand, immediately showed signs of struggling with its own Spider-Man connections when trailers for the movie showed Michael Keaton’s return as the Vulture from the MCU, as well as the Daily Bugle logo and web-slinger art from Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, and the Oscorp building from Andrew Garfield’s The Amazing Spider-Man films. Given Spider-Man: No Way Home showed how the MCU and SSU could connect, minds were open as to how Morbius‘s Spider-Man connections could continue building a bridge between the franchises.
Ultimately, Morbius dropped the ball on most of these links, as the shot of the web-slinger art from Raimi’s movies landed on the cutting room floor, as did the one featuring the Oscorp building. The shots of the Daily Bugle did make their way into Morbius and hint toward the arrivals of other Spider-Man characters to the SSU, including Black Cat and the Chameleon — the former was previously supposed to be set up in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 with the introduction of her alter-ego, while the latter was already teased in the MCU via Spider-Man: Far From Home.
As for Keaton’s Vulture, he is revealed at the end of Morbius to have simply jumped universes due to Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s multiverse spell, without any proper explanation as to why this happened to him. Also, the villain is shown wanting to partner up with Leto’s lead character to “do some good” and go against Spider-Man, an idea that Morbius inexplicably finds “interesting.” While Sony may have a set plan behind the scenes and an outline of how the SSU is unfolding, Morbius‘s multiverse missteps suggest the studio doesn’t know what it’s doing, especially with regards to Spider-Man connections.
Morbius Feels Like It Only Exists As A Spider-Man Universe Setup
Although it largely dropped the ball in establishing its surrounding multiverse connections to the character Spider-Man, one of the more egregious elements of Morbius has to do with how it further sets up the SSU. Rather than purposely focusing on developing its titular character and his surrounding world, the movie chooses to frequently drop references to other major characters and films, mostly notably those from the Venom movies. While the Venom joke from the Morbius trailer, in which he refers to himself as that other SSU antihero, is slightly altered, there is also a moment in the movie when Al Madrigal’s FBI agent Al Rodriguez acknowledges Venom by mentioning “that thing in San Francisco.”
Morbius is also littered with various subtle nods to other major Spider-Man villains, some of whom have already been set up in the SSU or other franchises. One shot of the Daily Bugle easily catches the eyes of fans for its nod to Rhino, who was previously portrayed by Paul Giamatti in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. The newspaper prop also confirms the existence of a Black Cat in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. The Spider-Man love interest and cat burglar was to be played by Felicity Jones in Sony’s previous Spider-Man-centric cinematic universe, with the actress making her debut as Felicia Hardy in the Amazing Spider-Man sequel and set to star in the spinoff Silver & Black, which would have paired Black Cat with Silver Sable.
While the Silver & Black movie was cancelled in 2018 in an effort to give each of its characters their own respective solo films, it’s since been reported that the project is being reworked as a TV series. However, producer Gina Prince-Blythewood has hinted that the series could be released on Disney+, which would presumably place the characters in the MCU. Regardless, the lingering development of a Black Cat project, the Chameleon being in the forthcoming Kraven the Hunter movie, and Keaton’s Vulture transferring to the SSU leaves Morbius feeling like a stepping stone for branching out its cinematic universe and setting up a Sinister Six movie rather than delivering a quality standalone film for its character.
Morbius Repeats Sony’s Worst Amazing Spider-Man Mistakes
Thanks to its overstuffed and rushed nature, particularly in its purpose to set up more of the SSU, Morbius makes it evident that Sony is repeating many of their worst Amazing Spider-Man franchise mistakes. Although The Amazing Spider-Man 2 wasn’t nearly as lambasted by critics as Morbius has been, the Spidey sequel did receive a mixed reception from critics and audiences alike for its overflowing roster of new characters, with Giamatti’s Rhino being left in the dust as the opening and closing villain while Dane DeHaan’s Green Goblin persona only serves as an antagonist for roughly 15-20 minutes of the movie. Though DeHaan’s Harry Osborn is seen throughout the film and even works with the main villain, Jamie Foxx’s Electro, for a little bit, the Garfield-led sequel ultimately felt unfocused in its storytelling.
The most infamous flaw with The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is the film’s penultimate sequence, in which the Gentleman (later confirmed to be Gustav Fiers) heads to the Oscorp laboratory where Harry transformed into the Green Goblin. Sent with instructions to break Giamatti’s Aleksei Sytsevich out of prison and to give him a mechanized rhino suit, audiences watched as the Gentleman passed by the unmistakable tentacles for Doctor Octopus and wings for the Vulture. In this Amazing Spider-Man 2 scene, the Gentleman and Harry also discuss the prospect of putting together a team to take down Spider-Man, a group most were sure to know as being the Sinister Six.
The Amazing Spider-Man franchise isn’t the only one to be criticized for overstuffing their films in the hopes of capturing the same success as the MCU. The DC Extended Universe got off to a notably rough start as Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice introduced Ben Affleck’s Dark Knight to the world yet still left him by the wayside and kept its titular fight to a minimum as the movie offered the first glimpses of Jason Momoa’s Aquaman, Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, Ezra Miller’s The Flash, and Ray Fisher’s Cyborg, squeezing them into an already overfilled story in order to set up the Justice League film. Unlike Sony, however, Warner Bros. has learned from their past mistakes and moved away from such interconnected narratives and instead towards creator and character-driven stories, most of them more positively received as a result.
Can The Sinister Six Save Sony’s Spider-Man Universe?
Sony has been hungry for a Sinister Six movie for well over a decade, with plans beginning properly in 2013 as The Cabin in the Woods‘ Drew Goddard signed on to write the screenplay and later confirmed to direct. The film would have served as a spinoff from the Amazing Spider-Man movies and was expected to be made and released before the planned fourth movie. But it was ultimately cancelled when that franchise was dumped and Spider-Man was sent to the MCU. Producer Amy Pascal has since confirmed there is still interest in making a Sinister Six movie, though Sony Pictures Motion Pictures Group President Sanford Panitch stated last year the studio doesn’t want to rush its development.
Despite Panitch’s promise that the studio will let such a project develop naturally, the SSU movies released thus far have pointed toward the opposite being true, that Sony is rushing to get the supervillain team on screen. Although solo films for each of the various members of the Sinister Six, all of them with very minor hints at other characters, would have been more acceptable, the studio is instead pushing these SSU installments together quicker than ever. The problematic Morbius post-credits scenes not only introduce its titular character to Michael Keaton’s Vulture, but it also sees the latter immediately suggesting putting a team together — not so subtly setting up the Sinister Six’s big screen arrival in the SSU.
While the question remains as to what other characters could be included in the team, the bigger question concerns whether the Sinister Six can save Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, especially after fans already got a taste of the concept in the MCU. A pseudo version of the team appears in Spider-Man: No Way Home, which divided fans for either being a wonderful homage to past Spider-Man franchises or overstuffing Tom Holland’s threequel. Comic book fans may be more eager to see the proper Sinister Six together, but with Sony failing to hire the same level of quality writers and directors that Marvel has for the MCU, it is hard to believe such a film could save the SSU.
That being said, the SSU franchise is still in the early stages of its life cycle, making it hard to write this cinematic universe off entirely. Morbius may be a product of everything wrong with Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, but the DCEU is proof that some studios ultimately come around to listening to critics and audiences and course correct their plans for the better. Only time will tell if Sony learns its lessons from Morbius when the next chapter of the SSU, Kraven the Hunter, hits theaters in January 2023.
Key Release Dates
- Kraven the Hunter (2023)Release date: Jan 13, 2023
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