Jared Leto's Spider-Man Spinoff 'Morbius' Delayed Again

01/03/2022 08:00 pm EST

Morbius, the long-awaited Spider-Man universe movie starring Jared Leto, has been delayed once again. On Monday, Sony Pictures moved the film to April 1, 2022, almost three years after initial production wrapped. The film is based on Morbius, the Living Vampire, an anti-hero introduced in a 1971 issue of The Amazing Spider-Man.

The movie finished filming in the first half of 2019 and the first round of reshoots wrapped in March 2020, just before productions were shut down to the coronavirus pandemic. The first two release dates for Morbius were in July 2020, but it has been delayed multiple times due to the coronavirus pandemic. At one point, it was scheduled for October 2021; Jan. 21, 2022; and Jan. 20, 2022, before it was moved to April 1 on Monday.

Leto, who has an Oscar for Dallas Buyers Club, stars in Morbius as Dr. Michael Morbius, who contracts a rare blood disease. The cure for the disease turns him into a unique vampire who has superhuman abilities but few weaknesses associated with vampires. Matt Smith plays Morbius' friend Loxias Crown, who has the same blood disease. Adria Arjona, Jared Harris, Al Madrigal, and Tyrese Gibson also star. Michael Keaton is set to play Adrian Toomes/Vulture, whom he first played in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Daniel Espinosa (Safe House) directed with a script by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless.

Initially, Sony's films starring Spider-Man supporting characters were set in their own universe, but Venom: Let There Be Carnage connected them to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Tom Hardy, who plays Eddie Brock, also made a surprise appearance in the MCU movie Spider-Man: No Way Home, which included appearances from actors in Sony's pre-MCU Spider-Man franchises. Since No Way Home became the highest-grossing film of 2021 with over $1.3 billion worldwide, it's possible Sony may have wanted to tweak with Morbius again to make sure the next Spider-Man-related movie is just as good.

"It's a big, fun movie filled with action," Leto told Variety in January 2021. "It's a brilliant doctor, a researcher, who starts off trying to find a cure for a very rare disease that he has and about 1,000 other people in the world have. I was interested in this role because he goes on this journey from dying to finding a cure for this disease and becoming incredibly healthy, and then having things change in a way that he becomes monstrous. So, it's a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde, which is of course a classic role." 

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