A Little Background
Since May of 2017, Sony Pictures has been trying to get this standalone film off the ground. About a year later, Academy Award winner Jared Leto was cast in the leading role with Life director Daniel Espinosa directing. For a very brief moment in time, the Morbius movie actually looked like it was going to hit theatres in early 2020. The studio even released a trailer, posters, and the works.
Investors saw the focus on Morbius and leapt onto the character’s debut (The Amazing Spider-Man #101). Copies of the book reaching spectacular new heights. At the time, 2020 was going to be the Summer of Morbius! Of course, that never happened for a multitude of reasons. Most of which were out of Sony’s control such as, you know, that little Pandemic that is still going on?
As of right now, Morbius is scheduled to hit theatres in January 2022. That's over two years after the teaser trailer released on January 14, 2020. Like Marvel Studios’ Black Widow or MGM’s No Time to Die, Morbius is a movie that started a major marketing push well before it was swept under the rug because of COVID. However, with more theatres opening up all over the world thanks to incredible vaccination numbers, hopefully Morbius isn’t the latest movie to DOA thanks to the
Pandemic.
So, What Should We Do With Morbius The Living Vampire?
I suppose you investors are probably wondering what this two-year delay has done to the character’s debut book? Well, it hurt the book, that’s for sure. In the midst of the Pandemic, there were a couple of panic-sales. Hell, hop onto eBay right now and you’ll find countless copies of Amazing Spider-Man #101 in various grades well-below the FMV.
If the book declined over the last 24 months, I actually see it going up in the next 5. The Morbius film, no matter what happens, will be released. This means, no matter how the film is received, there will be (at least for a week or so) a huge interest in Morbius and his debut book. Sony’s own Venom: Let There Be Carnage is about to cross the $300 million worldwide figure in the next week, against a budget of just over $100 million. While nowhere near as successful as the original Venom, Sony will see this as a huge success. I could honestly see a similar box office cume for Morbius, which I cannot imagine cost anywhere near as much as Venom: LTBC.
Obviously, if Morbius is actually good, that would be huge for the book. However, we now know that the Sonyverse is merging with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel has confirmed the cinematic appearances of Werewolf by Night, Blade, and Moon Knight over the next few years! With all of this information at our hands, 2022 could indeed be the long overdue, Summer of Morbius.
