“Morbius” is the second character from the Spider-Man Universe to hit the big screen; The film arrives with a budget of 75 million dollars and after almost two years of delay (it was initially scheduled for July 2022).
At press time, the meta site Rotten Tomatoes has not yet revealed the average critical reaction, but the first ones that have appeared are not flattering and describe it as “boring” and literally “bad.” The expectations surrounding the film are high since the promise is that the Spider-Man or Spiderverse Universe is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is a half-truth and more of a Sony and Marvel strategy than a reality.
When Marvel still did not see the potential that its characters could have in the cinema, nor was it part of Disney, it sold the rights to Spider-Man and another 900 characters related to the super hero to Sony in 1998. Sony will retain the rights as long as it does not stop releasing a title at least every 5-6 years. The Studio successfully started with the first trilogy starring Tobey Maguire at the beginning of the century. Then, after creative differences with Sam Raimi, director, others with the cast and a box office that began to decrease, they did a reboot last decade with Andrew Gardfield as the new face. That iteration had two deliveries and did not continue before the panorama of being able to integrate, via a new one, to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Phase 3 appearing in “Captain America: Civil War”. From there, the new Spider-Man, Tom Holland, appeared in “Avengers: Infinity Wars” and “Endgame” and in three titles of his own, the last one about to not happen.
According to Screen Rant, Spider-Man’s value is estimated at two billion dollars. Within the 50 highest grossing titles in movie history, he is the only character with five titles. YouGob Omnibus reported Spider-Man as Marvel’s most popular superhero in 2018, the next most popular being Iron Man at 9%. GAME did a study in 2021 where the arachnid was the most popular superhero in 57 countries, including the United States, with 48.7% of the votes. His popularity is undeniable, among other reasons, because he is a very relatable character.
The current agreement between Sony and Marvel included “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and an appearance of the character in a Marvel film. In the Spider-Man films, Marvel is contributing 25% of the budget with an equal percentage to be obtained from the box office and the merchandising rights. Likewise, Sony can integrate characters from the Spiderverse into the movies, which allowed the appearance of Eddy Brock (Tom Hardy) and Venom in one of the post-credit scenes of “No Way Home.” In “Morbius”, the trailers show the presence of Adrian Toomes “The Vulture” (Michael Keaton) which would confirm the existence of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man in that same universe.
Although it is known that there are plans for a new Spider-Man trilogy with Tom Holland at the helm, it has not yet been confirmed; many negotiations will have to be done, starting with Holland whose contract has already expired. Now, for Sony, “playing” that it is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe allows it to “integrate” and associate itself with the most important film universe of the moment.
However, the fine print indicates, at the moment, that the only space where the characters that Sony and Marvel have the right to can coexist are the Spider-Man movies. Spider-Man can appear and for Marvel it is useful that he does so in his own tapes, but, at the moment there is no agreement for any other Sony character to appear in any Marvel series or movie or for any Marvel character to appear in a Sony tape.
Jared Leto, star of “Morbius” said a few weeks ago in an interview that he would love to appear in “Blade”, the next Marvel movie, but that is not possible now. Sony is giving the impression of what it is with ambiguities, but, unlike Marvel, although it has hit the box office, it has not hit it critically.
Marvel has a very different record and it seems very difficult to be guided solely by it. Spider-Man’s webs are, at the moment, limited in scope.