Morbius 2: Tyrese Gibson Ready For Sequel, Addresses Deleted Scenes Disappointment

It’s still ‘Morbin Time’ for Tyrese Gibson.

The actor/musician is best known for his role as “Roman”  in the Fast & Furious franchise, but he also had a role as FBI agent Simon Stroud in Sony’s Morbius (2022) movie starring Jared Leto. In a new interview, Gibson makes it abundantly clear that he’s once again ready to come back as Stroud, in a Morbius sequel. 

“I’m waiting on the call. I would be honoured to dance with Daniel Espinosa and the crew again,” Gibson recently told CBR.  

In one of many now-infamous stories about Morbius, Tyrese’s Simon Stroud was supposed to have a “hi-tech weapons-grade arm” that would have made him a worthy threat to Leto’s Michael Morbius. 

Gibson was openly excited about getting to do some superhero-level action for the first time, telling Maxim back in a 2020 interview: 

“That arm has all kinds of special effects and powers, and that’s going to mess people up when they see this movie. It’s my first time ever officially being a superhero. I’ve done some superhero sh*t, but I ain’t never been a superhero. I had to explain this to my daughter.”

And yet, when Morbius finally hit theaters in 2022, Gibson’s role as Simon Stroud was drastically reduced in the final edit – including the scenes of his superpowered arm at work. In his CBR interview, Gibson reflected on his disappointment in not getting to shine in the film like he was supposed to: 

“I don’t know. The arm was in the trailer, and I definitely had to put that thing on for at least two to three hours a day in the make-up trailer, so, I don’t know,” Gibson explained. “It felt like it went from ‘This is what we’re going to do,’ to some type of issues that they had in post-production. Something. I don’t know.”

The actor also revealed just how much action he filmed during production on Morbius: 

“I definitely did a lot of scenes that was chopped out of the movie. I had a full-on fight, and brawl, with the villain, Matt Smith. I had a full-on fight scene with Matt Smith in London, where we filmed at a park, and it was crazy. And my arm was all over that scene, and they chopped that out of the movie, because I guess the presence of my arm, you wouldn’t have been able to edit around that.”

While it’s good to hear Tyrese’s enthusiasm for wanting to return for Morbius 2, it’s not necessarily a choice for him. Gibson signed a three-picture deal with Sony, which indicated that Stroud could have a larger arc to play as an investigator/pursuer of Morbius and co. That could still be in the cards; in fact, Stroud is an easy character to use as a connective thread between Spider-Man spinoff films like Kraven, Venom 3, or any new project announced – the same way Marvel used Sam Jackson’s Nick Fury and his crossover appearances to build the MCU. 

…As for Morbius 2? 

The first film was a box office flop ($167.5 million worldwide on a budget of $75-80 million) and now holds cult status as one of the worst comic book movies ever released in this new era… at least until Madame Web was released this year. Tyrese has a better chance of Stroud jumping to another franchise film than getting another shot at Morbius. 

You can currently stream Morbius on Netflix.