Sony finally gets a win with their Venom movie and suddenly every other story is about their Spider-Man spinoffs. While we had an update on Kraven the Hunter just a little while ago, it looks as if the next movie to roll out of this franchise will be Morbius, which has Jared Leto set to star as the vampiric hero. Producers Avi Arad and Matt Talmach sat down with Collider and confirmed a start date around February 2019 for the film.
“This is the great thing for us now,” Arad says, “that an actor like [Jared Leto], and an actor like Tom [Hardy] wanted to have their own character. But the character they love. Both of them, very hard to get them to do a movie. You actually cannot get them. We went in, we sat with them, and everybody told us, ‘Oh, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba.’ Nothing. That’s what he wanted to do.”
If Arad sounds super confident, he's got good reason. He was the guy who founded Marvel Studios and was in charge of their entire output until Disney came in and bought Marvel. With his past experience working in the toy business, Arad's specialty has always been branding, and that's what he's trying to do with Sony's superheroes now. What they need is a brand that can be seen as different from what Marvel is doing with the MCU. Venom was the start, and moving to another "dark" character like Morbius is the next step.
As for how dark the movie will be...well, that's still up in the air. The question of an R-rating came up, and that really does seem to be a touchy subject for the folks at Sony. They took some heat from fans who expected Venom to be R-rated, and now the producers are playing coy when it comes to Morbius...
Tolmach says, “I don’t think there’s a rule written somewhere in stone that all of them have to be one thing, alright? I think we’ve all talked about, ‘Well, if one of these presents itself in a way…’ Look, we have all seen, as you’ve said, the R-rated versions of these movies now working. So, that’s out there. You can succeed to a staggering degree.”
Arad adds, "If the success of the story depends on being R-rated. Then, of course, we can do it. But at least for me, I have grandkids, kids, whatever, all these things, and some of these movies, they’re dying to see. You know? As I took my grandson, seven, to the recording session of ‘Venom.’ And he had the time of his life.”
It's worth noting that Venom not only features cuss words, multiple scenes of people having their heads eaten, and at least one use of the word "pussy", so I bet his grandkid did have the time of his life. I was about seven years old the first time I saw Revenge of the Nerds and it was amazing.
Daniel Espinosa (Safe House) will direct Morbius, which doesn't have a release date but 2020 seems like a good bet.
