First Trailer For Morbius Is High On Cameos And Vampire Angst

It appears that the other day while I was busy with work, Sony Pictures decided to drop the first trailer for their upcoming Morbius film. An adaptation of a Marvel Comics character who is frequently an antagonist and sometimes anti-hero – who originally got his start in the pages of the October 1971 issue of The Amazing Spider-Man. Co-created by the equally legendary Roy Thomas and Gil Kane – Michael Morbius is a scientist that thanks to a rare blood condition he contracted as a child found his appearance becoming startlingly gaunt and haggard. This resulted in his being shunned by all but his Mother, although that cruel fate gave him ample time to study and as a young man he become a Nobel Prize-winning biologist. The blood condition however became a life-threatening illness for Morbius and he sought out a radical cure involving electroshock therapy and vampire bat DNA by way of a chemical he ingested. The result was that he was transformed into a living vampire and while he gained superhuman strength, speed, flight, and advanced regenerative abilities – he was also cursed with the aversion to sunlight and worst of all the need to drink blood to survive. And now 49 years after his first appearance in the pages of a Marvel Comic – Morbius is getting his own feature film starring Jared Leto!

I will as always be honest with you, the first thing that captured my attention and gave me a feeling of excitement about catching Morbius is not the fact it’s based on a Marvel Comics character. It is the fact that Director Daniel Espinosa was smart enough to secure Jared Harris – who appears to be a mentor to Leto’s Michael Morbius. I totally believe that Harris happens to be one of the finest actors of our time – if you aren’t familiar with his work I highly suggest you check out his roles in the likes of Mad Men, The Quiet Ones, and The Terror.

As you saw in the trailer for yourself – there is certainly some vampire angst going on – with Michael fighting and appearing to succumb to his baser vampire instincts. But I also mentioned cameos though in the article header – many are easy to find, like the defacement of a Spider-Man poster. That is the first ‘cameo’ to tie it into the Tom Holland Spider-Man film universe… you will know what it refers to if you’ve had the pleasure of catching Spider-Man: Far From Home.

The second cameo obviously being that of Michael Keaton who played Adrian Toomes in 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming aka The Vulture… a comic fan can’t hope that somehow this is the beginning of a forming of the Sinister Six. I also want to point out that the screenplay for Morbius is courtesy of Matt Sazma and Burk Sharpless – the duo responsible for the reimagining of Lost in Space for Netflix.

Now of course the entire movie will rest on the shoulders of Jared Leto – an actor that I respect but I will also freely admit I have not always cared for his performances. Having said that though I do think that Morbius is going to be entertaining and I look forward to catching it this Summer when it hits theaters. By the way, my first experience with the character of Morbius, the Living Vampire was thanks to the 1976 issue of Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man. Which I do believe was a re-print of Marvel Team-up #3 from back in July of 1972 – a story featuring both Spider-Man as well as the Human Torch teaming up to attempt to take down Morbius.