Sony’s Morbius stars Leto as Dr. Michael Morbius, a scientist who suffered from a rare blood disease and turned himself into a living vampire during an attempt to cure himself. Matt Smith, Tyrese Gibson, Adria Arjona and Jared Harris. It is directed by Daniel Espinosa.
Morbius is billed as part of Sony Pictures’ Universe of Marvel Characters. The final shot of the Morbius trailer includes none other than Adrian Toomes, the villainous Vulture played by Michael Keaton in 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming. Morbius also walks by street art Spider-Man calling him a murderer, a nod to the character being framed for murder in last year’s Spider-Man: Far From Home.
This shows that for the first time that Sony’s Spider-Man can indeed cross over with the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
In the past, Sony was plotting a shared universe back when Andrew Garfield was playing the character, one that would see Spider-Man battle a group of villains known as the Sinister Six. Those plans fell by the wayside following the underperformance of 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2. In the wake of the Sony hack, Marvel and Sony made a deal in 2015 to work together on the character. Tom Holland soon was cast as the webslingers.
It always seemed that those universe’s would remain separate. However, there had long been rumblings that perhaps Spider-Man, Morbius and Tom Hardy’s Venom could somehow end up in a film together down the road.
This was something that given further credence over the summer when Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige gave a statement announcing that Sony and Marvel had come to an agreement to produce one more Spider-Man movie together, as well as to allow Spidey to pop up in one more MCU movie.
“Spider-Man is a powerful icon and hero whose story crosses all ages and audiences around the globe,” Feige said in September. “He also happens to be the only hero with the superpower to cross cinematic universes, so as Sony continues to develop their own Spidey-verse you never know what surprises the future might hold.”
Morbius, which is produced by Matt Tolmach, Avi Arad and Lucas Foster, hits theaters July 31.
