Jared Leto certainly loves to transfigure for his roles — be it playing a tatted-up, grilled-out Joker in Suicide Squad, the hamstrung Paolo Gucci in House of Gucci, the transvestite Rayon in The Dallas Buyers Club or even the eventually disfigured Angel Face in Fight Club. Now we get to find out what Leto looks like when morphed into a blood-thirsty monster.
After many delays, the official Morbius trailer for the new Marvel Comic film is here. The superhero movie film that was meant to be a Venom prequel will now be the next chapter of Sony’s nascent Marvel Spider-Man Universe, slated for a January 2022 debut — a full two years after its first released teaser. Who is Morbius and how does he fit into the Spidey-world?
Leto plays Dr. Michael Morbius, a kindly man stricken with a rare blood disease who makes a dangerous gamble in order to cure his condition.
“I should’ve died years ago,” Leto-as-Morbius says in the preview. “People all over the world have my disease. To find a cure, we have to push the boundaries, take the risks.”
The leap for Morbius is sticking a bloodied hand into a jungle cave, releasing scores of vampire bats. And it works — for the most part. Morbius is suddenly blessed with superhuman strength, senses, flight, and other bat-like abilities. Unfortunately, this also comes with a vampiric thirst for blood.
Though inherently an altruistic man, the trailer makes it obvious that Dr. Morbius will wrestle with the thing inside that cured and altered his body. The question remains if he will be able to harness these abilities to be an ally of good or become a villain.
“Are you here to heal the world? Or to destroy it?” Jared Harris asks Dr. Morbius in the clip.
The trailer certainly suggests that this conflict will plague the now super-powered doctor, and that he may end up a reluctant member of Sony’s growing band of anti-heroes — headlined by Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock/Venom dual creature.
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The clip also drops several hints that this movie fits into Sony’s larger Spider-verse setup between Tom Hardy’s Venom, Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Kraven the Hunter, and more Spider-Man comics characters. Based on Michael Keaton’s MCU villain Vulture appearing in the preview, Morbius also seems to be an important part of the crossover between Sony and the MCU, which will play out over the next few years in the also-Leto-led No Way Home, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania.
The final preview scene even takes a crack at this confusing collision with Morbius confronting a knifed assaulter who asks, “Who are you, man?”
“I… am… Venom!” Morbius responds. “I’m just kidding. It’s Dr. Michael Morbius, at your service.”
Multiverse ridiculousness aside, Leto-as-a-vampire looks pretty wicked. This monstrous struggle should be all you need to see the film.
Morbius is slated to open in theaters on Jan. 28. Check out the trailer below.
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