Morbius: Sony Delays Spider-Man Spin-Off

Sony’s Spider-Man spinoff Morbius, which stars Jared Leto and centers on the character of Morbius the Living Vampire, has been delayed yet again. The good news? This time it’s only by a week. The film has been moved from January 21, 2022 until January 28, 2022. That’s according to Box Office Pro, a Twitter account that’s allied with movie exhibitors and is routinely one of the first places that changes in release dates show up. There is nothing else opening on Morbius‘s previous weekend, so the studio likely wants to give Scream, which presumably has a pretty similar audience and comes out the week before, a chance to breathe a little bit.

“What we won’t do is make the mistake of putting a very, very expensive $200 million movie out in the market unless we’re sure that theaters are open and operating at significant capacity,” Sony Pictures chief Tony Vinciquerra said during a conference in September. “You’ll see a lot of strange things happen over the next six months in how films are released, how they’re scheduled, how they’re marketed, but once we get back to normal, we will have learned a lot, I think, and found ways to do things that are somewhat different and hopefully better.”

You can check out the official synopsis for Morbius below.

One of Marvel’s most compelling and conflicted characters comes to the big screen as Oscar winner Jared Leto transforms into the enigmatic antihero, Michael Morbius. Dangerously ill with a rare blood disorder, and determined to save others suffering his same fate, Dr. Morbius attempts a desperate gamble. What at first appears to be a radical success soon reveals itself to be a remedy potentially worse than the disease.

Leto is set to appear in the flick alongside Tyrese Gibson, Matt Smith, Adria Arjona, and Michael Keaton as Adrian Toomes’ Vulture, effectively tying the movie into Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man: Homecoming.

Morbius was previously set for July 10 and then July 31, 2020, before moving to March 19, 2021. It kept that date for quite a while, but ultimately moved again to October 8, then January 21, 2022, and now is set to open on January 28. Should the schedule hold, Venom: Let There Be Carnage (which we are now assuming will be tied to the MCU, but who knows?) will open first on September 24; Tom Holland’s Spider-Man returns in the Marvel Studios co-produced Spider-Man: No Way Home, set for release on December 17.