Jared Harris is a character actor you might have seen in any number of film and television projects over the last thirty years, whether it be AMC's The Terror, the POLTERGEIST remake, THE QUIET ONES, Mad Men, Fringe, Steven Spielberg's LINCOLN, John Carpenter's THE WARD, RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE, or his appearance as "London Boy" in NATURAL BORN KILLERS. He's been around. Now Harris has become the latest cast member to sign on for Sony's film based on the Marvel Comics character MORBIUS, a.k.a. Morbius, the Living Vampire.
I think Sony is simply calling this project MORBIUS now, but I prefer to say the full "Morbius, the Living Vampire".
Jared Leto is playing the title character, who was created by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man #101 back in 1971.
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.
Morbius got his own book for a brief period in the '90s and was hanging out with the likes of Ghost Rider and Blade, that's where most of my familiarity with the character comes from.
Adria Arjona plays Morbius's fiancee Martine Bancroft, who
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.
Also in the cast is former Doctor Who star Matt Smith, who's taking on an unspecified role. Sony also didn't provide any information on the character Jared Harris will be playing.
Since we're lacking that information, I'm throwing in a couple Morbius-related posts from Leto's Instagram.
MORBIUS is being directed by Daniel Espinosa from a screenplay by Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama. Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach, and Lucas Foster are producing the film, with Palak Patel overseeing the project for the studio.
MORBIUS is scheduled to reach theatres on July 31, 2020.