After having success giving a former Spider-Man villain his own movie with VENOM, Sony is moving forward with a similar project, this one centered on the Marvel Comics character MORBIUS THE LIVING VAMPIRE. Like Venom, the Morbius character was originally created to cause trouble for Spider-Man but went on to become an anti-hero and get his own title.
First seen in Amazing Spider-Man #101, which was published in October of 1971, Morbius is
Dr. Michael Morbius, a scientist who suffered from a rare blood disease and attempted to cure himself to disastrous results. Instead of being cured, he became afflicted with a condition that was a form of vampirism — the thirst for blood, along with fangs and super strength.
Jared Leto has signed on to play the title role in the MORBIUS film, which is being directed by LIFE's Daniel Espinosa, and now the project is close to securing Leto's first co-star.
Adria Arjona, who you may have seen in THE BELKO EXPERIMENT and/or PACIFIC RIM: UPRISING, is in talks to play Martine Bancroft, who was engaged to Morbius in the comic book source material.
She debuted in 1971's Amazing Spider-Man #102 and could be said to be accidentally responsible for Morbius’ transformation into a vampire-like creature, as it’s the human Morbius’ love for fiancee Martine that drives him to experiment on himself.
Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama, the duo behind Netflix's new version of Lost in Space, have written the screenplay for MORBIUS, which is being produced by Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach, and Lucas Foster.
I was a collector of the Morbius comic series that ran from 1992 into 1995, so I'm looking forward to seeing the character make it to the big screen.