Morbius Was Initially Supposed to Appear in Wesley Snipes' Blade

Long before Morbius was on the schedule for Sony and two decades prior to the start of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Michael Morbius was supposed to make his live-action debut. At one point in the closing moments of Blade, the titular character played by Wesley Snipes was supposed to have a run-in with Morbius, the Living Vampire. Played by director Stephen Norrington, one thing led to another and the scene was eventually scrapped from the film.

It wasn't until the movie was released on Blu-ray the deleted scene was included, which you can see above. All these years later, the character is finally set to make his live-action debut, played by Jared Leto in a solo flick set in Sony's Universe of Marvel Characters.

Morbius producer and Marvel stalwart Avi Arad has long teased an epic flick with Leto at the helm, saying last year he and his team are "just getting started" with the batch of movies on Sony's slate.

"Wait until you see the way he looks, what we have done with this character, you will love it," producer Avi Arad said in a recent interview. "There are so many other great characters on the way, too. You will see. We're just getting started."

"This is the great thing for us now, that an actor like [Leto], and an actor like [Venom star] Tom [Hardy] wanted to have their own character. But the character they love," he added in a separate interview. "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. We went to this place with them, and he just…good actors want to be different than what they are."

Morbius hits theaters July 31st. Sony's only other Marvel movie with a release date is Venom 2, set for release October 2nd.

What other characters would you like to see join the Sony Universe of Marvel Characters? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section!