Jared Leto has made some really different career choices recently, moving away from indie movies to the superhero/comicbook genre. Well, with the boom in superhero movies thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, who can blame the guy?
Leto is doing a Lawrence Fishburne, and adding another comicbook character to his resume, as he is being signed on to play Morbius, in Sony’s expanding Spider-verse. That’s two comic book characters for two different comic book companies and studios.
If the name “Morbius the Living Vampire” does not ring any bells in your head, it is perfectly alright. The character has been pretty obscure in comic book history, mainly due to poor reception and sales.
So who is he?
Michael Morbius was created in 1971 as part of the Spider-Man comics. Similar to Dr Stephen Strange and Bruce Banner, Morbius was a scientist who was transformed when a science experiment went wrong. In an attempt to cure his affliction of a rare blood disease, his experiment backfired and turned him – well, into a pseudo living vampire. He has very long teeth, has to drink blood to live, super strength and can’t stand sunlight. Basically Dracula. Initially viewed as a villian, Morbius would be firmly seen as tragic anti-hero, hunting down other vampires and at the same time struggling with his own blood lust.
With Spider-Man now firmly being in the control of Marvel Studios, it seems weird that Sony is building a Spider-verse, without Spidey himself. With the Venom movie coming out later this year, and now the announcement of Morbius, there looks to be a recurring theme in the movies that they are building up: dark, horror-esque anti-hero movies. The success of Deadpool and Netflix’s The Punisher, could be tell tale signs of superhero fatigue, and anti-heroes are a great way to take a fresh perspective on heroes, with questions of morality and ethics commonly thrown in.
Scandinavian filmmaker Daniel Espinosa, who directed sci-fi space thriller Life, is slated to direct Morbius. Scriptwriters behind Netflix’s remake of Lost In Space, Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama are on board as well, bringing about a promising talent pool to bring Morbius to life. And we have to say, Jared Leto looking like he never ages a day, is a great choice of cast for Morbius. For all you know he could be a vampire in disguise. *wink wink*
Hearing the news about @JaredLeto as #morbius at first I was like ? then I was excited, let's see what he brings to the #Marvel world! pic.twitter.com/WcJheMkLvA
— BossLogic (@Bosslogic) June 28, 2018
Timothy is a freelance photographer and fellow geek. His professional work spans many genres and he shoots on film for leisure.
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