By Travis Johnson
First Venom, featuring Tom Hardy as the symbiote-ridden anti-hero, and now this. Sony seems not only determined to milk Spider-Man’s rogues gallery for franchisable material, they’re populating these films with actors who have made a mark, for good or ill, playing DC villains onscreen before.
But we’re burying the lede here: Oscar winner Jared Leto is gonna play Spider-Man’s sometime friend, sometime foe Dr. Michael Morbius, aka Morbius the Living Vampire, in a newly announced feature film spectacular.
First appearing in 1971’s Amazing Spider-Man #101, our man Morbius as created by comcis legends Gil Kane (art) and Roy Thomas (words). His onscreen antics will be brought to life by director Daniel Espinosa (the not-too-bad Life and Safe House), working from a script by Lost in Space scribes Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama.
A tragic anti-hero, biochemist Morbius suffers from a rare blood disorder that he tries to cure through the merry Marvel method of weird super-science – specifically a combo of vampire bat DNA and electro-shock therapy. This being comics, his cure turned out to be a curse, giving him a thirst for blood, an aversion to sunlight, and a face only a very tolerant mother could live (and super-strength, flight, and all that jazz).
No further film details have been brought to light as yet, including other cast members, but three things come immediately to mind. One: this could be a lot of fun. Two: it’s a bit weird that they’re milking Spidey for the darkest anti-heroes they can find. And three: they really need to bring back Blade.
More as it develops.
