While Morbius may have received a re-release in theaters after memes based on the Jared Leto flick trended on social media, the box office doesn’t lie. Although someone may be softly calling “Michael, Michael, Miiiiichael” across the streets of New York City, the call certainly isn’t originating with movie going audiences.
And the Morbius Played On…
According to data from Forbes (in an article entitled “‘Morbius’ Bombs Again With $85,000 Friday”), the movie made only an average of $270 per theater upon its re-release. Forbes staff writer Scott Medelson wrote:
“The online mockery and ‘memes’ doesn’t mean a damn thing in terms of general audience interest. It is well past time the media stopped treating this foolishness as anything other than amusing but irrelevant comedy. That’s to say nothing of treating random racists bitching about Ghostbusters, Star Wars, Marvel, Doctor Who, Percy Jackson, etc., etc. as even a partial representative of general consumer consensus.”
Without sufficient monetary recuperation, is it really possible we’ll be seeing a sequel to Morbius, or did Leto post a video of himself reading a script for a meme-entitled sequel pre-emptively?
What time is it? pic.twitter.com/IuWR72WCc9
— JARED LETO (@JaredLeto) June 3, 2022
I Survived!: The Morbius Disaster of 2022
Having viewed Morbius during its first release thanks to a visit to the drive-in with Rebecca Oliver Kaplan and The Beat’s fearless Editor-in-Chief, Heidi MacDonald, it’s safe to say that the filmmakers were hoping for a sequel from the jump.
For one thing, the “love interest” of the movie (that’s Adria Arjona, not Matt Smith) was transformed into a “Living Vampire” by the conclusion (Morbius 2: She-Morbius?). Furthermore, the sloppy and unceremonious arrival of the Vulture (Michael Keaton) from the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s branch of the timeline in a mid-credits scene is obviously meant to prime the pump for more Marvelous non-Marvel Studios adventures (and the marketing opportunities that flow there from).
Just how did the Vulture obtain his wings in Morbius’s universe, especially when he built them using tech scavenged from the fallout of The Avengers, and the Avengers don’t exist in the Morbius timeline?
These are questions I don’t want to answer. Fortunately, with box office numbers this bad, it seems unlikely that anyone is going to have to write a script that explains that mess away.
Did you endure Morbius, either the first or second time it was unleashed on theaters? The Beat wants to hear from you! Let us know what you thought, here in the comment section or over on social media @comicsbeat.
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