Michael Keaton Was Confused By Marvel Universe While Filming Morbius

Even Michael Keaton was having trouble keeping the connections of the Marvel Movie Universe straight while filming Sony’s Morbius movie. Morbius is a spin-off of Sony’s current Spider-Man movie franchise with Tom Holland, which sees Jared Leto play a scientist named Michael Morbius who tries to cure his own rare blood disease and ends up becoming a living vampire. Typical. The trailer for Morbius revealed that Michael Keaton has a cameo role reprising his Spider-Man: Homecoming character, Adrian Toomes, aka The Vulture. The fact that a Spider-Man movie character is showing up in one of Sony’s spinoffs has been a big signal to fans – but just a signal of confusion for Michael Keaton.

Keaton’s story about Morbius comes in a new THR feature about this new phase of the actor’s career (in addition to the Spider-Man Movie Universe, Keaton is also reprising his Batman role for DC’s The Flash movie). Check out the hilarious anecdote of what happened when the team at Sony tried to sit Keaton down and explain the larger Spider-Verse connections taking shape:

When Keaton shot Morbius, a Marvel movie due from Sony in 2022 for which he reprises the Vulture role, the filmmakers started talking him through the logic of the fictional universe, referencing recent Marvel plot points. “I’m nodding like I know what the fuck they’re talking about. I go, ‘Uh-huh.’ And I’m thinking, ‘You may as well be explaining quantum physics right now to me. All I know is I just know my guy. And I know the basics.’ So finally, they were looking at me, and they just started laughing. They said, ‘You don’t know what we’re talking about, do you?’ I said, ‘No, I don’t, no idea what you’re talking about.’ “

Michael Keaton isn’t playing coy when he says he really doesn’t get the larger process of making these large blockbuster franchise universes. In a different interview, Keaton actually let a somewhat big spoiler about The Flash movie go in idle conversation, without apparently realizing how fans would jump on his every word. It’s kind of humorous: a veteran actor like Keaton is about the only kind of star exempt from the ninjas and snipers that studios like Marvel and Warner Bros. (jokingly?) retain to keep their stars in line, and their secrets protected.

When Morbius first started its marketing in 2019, fans assumed Keaton’s appearance would one of the steps toward building an entire Sinister Six team for Tom Holland’s Spider-Man to eventually battle. Now, rumors for Spider-Man: No Way Home state Holland’s Spider-Man could be battling a multiversal Sinister Six threat. In that context, this Morbius crossover scene with Keaton is even more confusing than ever, as Morbius will now arrive in theaters after Spider-Man: No Way Home. That is, unless the COVID-19 Delta Variant pushes Sony’s big Spider-Man films (Venom 2, Spider-Man 3) into 2022, after Morbius’ release on January 28, 2022.