'Morbius' trailer: Sony's origin story for Spider-Man villain looks promising
The news about Jared Leto leading a Sony-backed antihero movie based on the Marvel character of Michael Morbius came out in 2018. Scheduled to release in 2020, the Spider-Man spin-off movie, Morbius, suffered repeated delays due to the pandemic. Now the studio is firm about releasing the origin story in January next year. Thus, we have finally been given a trailer. Here's a breakdown.
Morbius becomes vampire-like in quest to beat rare blood disease
We get a good look into Morbius's origin story here. The three-minute-long clip begins with an ailing Dr. Morbius visiting an island to find a cure for his rare blood disease. This quest leads him to inflict a form of vampirism within himself, thus making him crave blood. And, just like that, we have a doctor trying to kill people, instead of saving them.
We get a glimpse of all his powers
We understand this dilemma of controlling blood lust and harming innocent people will turn Morbius from a villain to an anti-hero. This is how his arc in Marvel Comics goes as well. The trailer gives us an insight into what will his powers be. Apart from great strength and agility, Morbius also boasts of "some form of bat radar." This means, he can fly!
Marvel references abound; how many did you catch?
Apart from Morbius's horrid pseudo-vampire face and spine-chilling background score, the abundance of references will excite every Marvel fan. We get Michael Keaton reprising his role as the Vulture and Venom is name-dropped. Meanwhile, in one scene, Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man can be seen on the wall; popular foes of the web crawler—Rhino and Black Cat—are also spotted. Did you catch any of these?
The movie is hitting theaters in January 2022
Overall, director Daniel Espinosa succeeds in creating interest in the Marvel character through the trailer. Matt Smith, Adria Arjona, Jared Harris, Al Madrigal, and Tyrese Gibson round up the cast. The movie is releasing in theaters in January but once it finishes its run, Morbius will be coming to Netflix in the United States. This is because Sony doesn't have its own streaming platform.
