If you told me 20 years ago that third-tier Spider-Man character Morbius the Living Vampire would not just appear in a comic book movie but star in one, Iâd have laughed in your face. If you told me 10, or even five years ago, I would have called you a liar. Now, the movie is coming out in a mere six months, and the recent trailer is incontrovertible proof that it actually existsâand I still cannot believe this is happening.
No offense to vampires (living or otherwise) or nth-tier Spider-Man characters (because there are hundreds), but the fact that live-action superhero entertainment has gotten so all-encompassing that Morbius the Living Vampire can headline his own film is genuinely worrying to me. Itâs undeniably a sign that studios are so desperate for comic book content theyâre barely discriminating which heroes and villains get a $100,000,000 movie. Thatâs good news if youâre one of the 11 people on the planet who claim Morbius as their favorite comic character, or those waiting and hoping that their obscure fave might someday join somebodyâs cinematic universe. But it might be bad news for the rest of us.
https://gizmodo.com/io9s-guide-to-all-the-movies-you-should-give-a-damn-abo-1840780568
If youâre a nerd with anxiety issues, as so many of us are, youâve probably wondered when the general public will finally start feeling superhero movie fatigue, and this great golden age of comic book adaptations will begin to come to an end. We all know itâs coming eventually; Marvel Studios, Warner Bros., and Sony Pictures manage to put out a minimum of five superhero movies per year, which is asking a lot of audiences even when the films starred A-listers like the Avengers, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, the X-Men, etc. Morbius the Living Vampire is, to put it generously, not an A-lister.
Iâm sure the Morbius movie will do well. Sonyâs Venom solo flick was a surprisingly big hit for the studio, making $850 million on a $100 million budget. Obviously, the olâ Living Vampire has about a hundredth of the character recognition of Venom, but Sony has likely counteracted that by implying that the Morbius movie will take place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which will make it appointment viewing for the tens of millions of people who feel they have to see every MCU film to get the âentire story.â Also, the movie might be great! The trailer looked pretty rad.
No matter how good the movie ends up being, people wonât be buying tickets to Morbius to see its obscure title character. Theyâll be paying to see howâand how muchâit will connect to the MCU. People are much more interested in finding out whether Michael Keaton is reprising his role as Adrian âThe Vultureâ Toomes from Spider-Man: Homecoming in Morbius than they are in a weird-ass semi-vampire who is inexplicably missing his nose. The fact that Morbius is essentially third-billed after a Keaton cameo and a poster of Spider-Man does not bode well for this movieâŠor Sonyâs other Spidey side story flicks.
Sony didnât choose to make a Morbius movie because of the characterâs star appeal. Again, the character is extremely obscureâbut so are all the other potential Spider-Man-less Spider-Man movies the studio has in the pipeline, which include films starring Black Cat, Silver Sable, Kraven the Hunter, Nightwatch, and Madame Web. (Technically, a Sinister Six movie is supposedly in development, which would unequivocally kick assâas long as the Six have someone to be sinister to. Without Spider-Man, thereâs no point.) Iâve been a professional nerd for two decades and I barely know who these characters are, and none of what I do know makes me want to see a movie centered around them. Sony can spend $100 million or more apiece to put them into theaters, but all the money in the world canât make these characters interesting if they arenât already. And a bounty of Easter Eggs may get butts in seats, but if audiences donât care about these lead characters, theyâre going to get tired fast.
Thatâs exactly how superhero fatigue will set in.
https://gizmodo.com/the-spider-verse-connections-in-morbius-are-confusing-a-1840975660
And letâs not forget, we donât know if Morbiusâ Easter Eggs are going to be worth a damn. In fact, we donât actually know if the movie will connect Sonyâs Marvel Universe with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We assume it will, because the trailer shows a poster of Spider-Man, on some wall in New York City, which someone has spray-painted âMurdererâ onâan apparent reference to the heroâs state after Marvelâs Spider-Man: Far From Home, when people are blaming the webslinger for Mysterioâs death. Then, of course, thereâs Keatonâs appearance in the film; while neither Sony nor Marvel has confirmed Keaton is reprising the role of the Vulture in Morbius, it would frankly be cuckoo banana pants if he werenât.
But what will it mean if the goddamn Vulture is as âconnectedâ as we assume? Does it matter if Michael Keatonâs characterâand maybe another ancillary Spider-character or twoâget to pop by Morbius, but not Spider-Man himself? Because thatâs not a picture of the MCUâs Spider-Manâitâs Tobey Maguireâs incarnation, from the Sam Raimi-directed movies of the early â00s, specifically an incarnation Sony wholly owns and thus can use without having to reach some kind of legal agreement with Marvel Studios. On one hand, it makes perfect sense, because why would Sony deal go through the labyrinthine process of reaching an accord with Marvel just for a picture thatâs part of a set background?
On the other hand, if Sony canât even bother to get the rights to an image of Marvelâs Spider-Man, why should we ever believe that Tom Holland will ever star in one of these films? Hell, will Keaton actually be playing the Vulture, or a dude who looks just like the Vulture as seen in Spider-Man: Homecoming but never gets around to saying his name or mentioning anything that happened to him previously? Would this really be enough for audiences to consider the movie as taking place in the MCU, or would it just be a gimmick at that pointâsomething to trick viewers into thinking that Morbius somehow matters? Sony has severely raised peopleâs expectations here, and if the studio fails to deliver, well, thatâs another great way to inform viewers that not all superhero movies are essential viewing.
Maybe Iâm wrong about Keaton, about Holland ever managing to make his way into one of Sonyâs films, or about Morbius itself. Thatâs fine with me, because Iâm not at all eager for the golden age of superhero entertainment to begin to wane, but also because I like good movies. I would love for this biopic about a barely known Spider-Man character to be awesome, to make a billion dollars, and make the Living Vampire so popular kids start wearing Morbius-branded backpacks when they head to school this fall. But even if it becomes the #1 comic book movie in the world, Sony is still going to need to make a Black Cat movie eventually. And Silver Sable. And Kraven the Hunter. Comic book fans have barely cared about these characters for decades; itâs foolish to believe mass audiences will suddenly find them fascinating.
Hollywood is about to run out of the superheroes people do care aboutâand thatâs not going to stop studios from making more and more superhero movies, hoping against hope that somehow ancillary characters like Madame Web might be the next Captain America. (She wonât.) Morbius might end up being fantastic, but thereâs a reason some comic characters stay obscure, and thatâs usually because they were never that interesting in the first place.
https://gizmodo.com/the-10-best-superhero-films-of-the-past-decade-1838889678
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