After winning a staring contest against Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger at the 96th Academy Awards ceremony, Michael Keaton is opening up about his bizarre cameo in Sony’s 2022 Spider-Man spin-off film Morbius. Among the film’s many cinematic crimes is Keaton’s post-credits guest spot as Adrian Toomes, aka The Vulture. Despite the opinion that adding Michael Keaton to any film makes it better, fans scratched their heads in confusion when Toomes appeared. Some fans suggest this scene is another attempt to tease a Sinister Six film in Sony’s live-action Spider-Verse franchise, but we’ve heard that song before. Eventually, you must either clarify your intentions or scrap the project entirely.
On the Happy, Sad, Confused podcast, Keaton admitted he’s just as confused as everyone else about his Morbius cameo, saying, “No, no idea. None. Zero,” Keaton said. “I mean, they said ‘Okay’… and even they couldn’t quite explain it. They said, ‘Look, let me just kind of tell you,’ and I go, ‘I really don’t quite know what you’re talking about or even who some of these people are,’ and he said, ‘Okay, let me explain,’ but it was complicated because, obviously, they were looking down the road…”
Michael Keaton’s Morbius cameo implies that, at some point, Adrian Toomes recruits Jared Leto’s Michael Morbius for a version of the Sinister Six, a team of Spider-Man’s rogues hellbent on pulling the legs off the friendly neighborhood wall-crawler. When you consider the horrific reception of Morbius, it’s doubtful that Leto’s character will appear in any of Sony’s future Spider-films. With the box office failure of Morbius and, even worse, Madame Web, Sony’s live-action Spider-Verse desperately needs re-webbing. The studio’s Kraven the Hunter, starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the project’s title character, has yet to pounce into theaters, but the outlook appears bleak.
It’s a shame that Keaton’s Vulture will unlikely appear in future Spider-Man films. Keaton delivers a fantastic performance as the scorned villain in 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming, with opportunities to increase his hatred for Spider-Man during an extended prison sentence. I could see Keaton bringing Vulture to new heights if given the chance, but I won’t hold my breath.