Morbius: Jared Leto Marvel movie pushed into 2022, avoiding Bond competition

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Sony had been planning to give their Marvel Comics adaptation Morbius a theatrical release in July of 2020, but due to the pandemic they had to move it back to a March 2021 release date. Just a week and a half ago, we shared the news that Morbius was moving from March to October 8th… but Sony has already ditched the October release plan. Morbius has now been moved to January 21, 2022.

The latest delay comes in reponse to MGM announcing that they were pushing the new James Bond movie No Time to Die back from April to October 8th – the date Sony had already picked for Morbius. So now Morbius is moving to avoid facing competition from Bond.

Morbius is not a Marvel Studios production; Sony made this one on their own because they have access to any characters introduced in the pages of Spider-Man comics. Morbius made his debut in The Amazing Spider-Man #101 back in 1971. Created by writer Roy Thomas and artist Gil Kane, the character 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 plays the title character and is joined in the cast by Jared Harris as his mentor, Tyrese Gibson as "an FBI agent trying to hunt down the living vampire", and Adria Arjona as Morbius' 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.  

Matt Smith takes on the role of the villainous Loxias Crown. ThatHashtagShow reported that 

Crown suffers from the same rare blood disease as his good friend Morbius. Like Morbius, Loxias will be transformed by the serum that Moribus developed to cure them and the film’s main conflict will center on Morbius trying to stop the killing machine Loxias has become while also fighting off his own blood lust.

Despite not being part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe itself, Morbius will be connected to the recent Spider-Man movies through nods to the events of Spider-Man: Far from Home and an appearance by Michael Keaton as his Spider-Man: Homecoming character Adrian Toomes, a.k.a. The Vulture.

Morbius was directed by Daniel Espinosa from a screenplay written by Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama, and produced by Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach, and Lucas Foster.