Matt Smith (Doctor Who, The Crown) has signed on to join Jared Leto is Sony’s upcoming Morbius film, which is based on the Spider-Man villain. Daniel Espinosa (Safe House) will direct from a script penned by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless, who co-created the Netflix series Lost In Space.
Morbius is Sony’s latest expansion of their current Spider-Man-less Spider-Man universe, which kicked off last year with Venom. Leto will play Morbius, a world-renowned biochemist dying of an unknown blood disease, who injects himself with vampire bat DNA in hopes of being cured. Of course, that goes very wrong and he turns into a real vampire instead.
Smith’s role has not yet been revealed, but sources are guessing that he is likely playing Loxias, a good friend of Morbius who has the same unknown blood disease as him. When Loxias takes what he thinks is the cure, he transforms into a killing machine, and it is up to Morbius to stop him. Sony were reportedly interested in Eddie Redmayne and James McAvoy for the role.
Morbius was first created in 1971 and quickly positioned as one of Spider-Man’s fiercest foes. He received his own comic book series starting in 1992 – Morbius, The Living Vampire – which ran for 32 issues through April 1995.
Smith’s casting is an interesting one considering that his best roles thus far have come on television, and he hasn’t exactly blown up on the big screen yet.
That could all change this year though, which suddenly becomes a huge one for his career, as he’s got a role in Star Wars: Episode IX coming up, plus he also has the spy thriller Official Secrets debuting at Sundance this month, plus he’s also got the thriller His House lined up, which is causing some buzz in the industry.
With this Morbius casting, things are really starting to look good for him on the silver screen now. The film doesn’t officially have a release date yet, but last year Sony set aside two dates for unnamed superhero movies. One – October 2, 2020 – is very likely a Venom sequel, and thus most agree that the prior date – July 10, 2020 – is likely Morbius. Sony will probably confirm this soon.
#Peace.Love.Morbius
