The same day that Joaquin Phoenix scored an Oscar nomination for portraying Jared Leto’s one-time DC villain the Joker, a new trailer for Leto’s next superhero movie hit the internet. World, meet Leto’s vampire villain Morbius.
Morbius is based on the DC Comics character. Like 2019’s somewhat ridiculous Venom, it is one of the films in Sony’s Spider-Man universe that does not include Tom Holland’s Spider-Man. (Spider-Man, it seems, will be connected in some way to Morbius, though exactly how is unclear: Graffiti depicting the character can be seen on the wall in one shot, and Michael Keaton's Vulture from Spider-Man: Homecoming shows up as well at the very end of the trailer.) Only time will tell if people will thirst over this villain the way they did with the tongue-wagging character portrayed by Tom Hardy.
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In the film, Leto plays Michael Morbius, a doctor with a rare blood disorder that is slowing draining his life force. Determined to cure himself and others from the condition, he heads to the rainforest for some not-exactly-sanctioned experimentation...on himself. Leto’s character slices open his hand, then enters a cave where thousands of vampire bats dwell. Compelled by the smell of blood, the bats descend on Morbius, who screams bloody murder.
One can assume that this is what Morbius intended to happen, but I can’t help but wonder if there was a better way to get the bats to play. This cannot possibly be the most sanitary nor the smartest option. Couldn’t Morbius set a trap for the bats that did not involve an open wound being sucked at by a wild animal? A bat is seen in a lab in the next shot!
It should come as zero surprise that Morbius’ purposeful run-in with the vampire bats leads him to some pretty drastic bodily changes. His blood condition is cured, and seemingly overnight he goes from frail to Kumail Nanjiani ripped. Unfortunately, in the Spider-Man villains universe, no one gets great power without a devastating cost. In this case, Morbius turns into a gross, snarling, vampire-like monster that the world may very well find sexy one day.
Morbius isn’t the only vamp content to hit our screens recently. V Wars, starring Ian Somerhalder, premiered on Netflix late last year. A new take on Dracula from the creators of Sherlock also debuted on the streamer in early 2020.
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Vampires: They’re hot again, even if the jury is out on just how attractive Leto’s post-transformation Morbius will be to viewers.
Check out the trailer below:
Morbius hits theaters this summer.