The living vampire would like the living people to stay as alive and healthy as possible to see his solo movie debut, so you’ll have to wait a bit longer.
Sony Pictures has announced that it will delay the release of Daniel Espinosa’s Morbius once again, this time moving from its January 28 release date to — no fooling — April 1. OK, maybe some fooling, as this is literally the seventh release date the poor Jared-Leto-starring Marvel movie has had since it was originally meant to come out in the summer of 2020.
Sony is citing concerns about the ongoing covid-19 pandemic, in particular the surge of cases of the Omicron variant of the virus in the US, as the reason for the delay. Although several in-person events — including the premiere celebration of The Book of Boba Fett — have cited Omicron as a reason for postponement, Morbius is perhaps the largest theatrical release delay we’ve seen so far to pin its reasoning on concerns regarding the variant. And that’s on top of all the other schedule reshuffling we’ve seen in the past few months due to past delays (and other covid variants, like Delta. Remember Delta? Oh, we were in such innocent times six months ago).
While Sony would’ve likely loved a post-No Way Home glow to help lift up the prospects of its latest Spider-Man-adjacent film (part of the interconnected multiverse of Marvel characters the studio has in the universe formerly known as SPUMC) it’s not like the studio is exactly hurting for another immediate box office success right now. No Way Home — which, hilariously, entered production and released in the time Morbius has had its seven release dates — and its pandemic-defying, billion-dollar success has afforded the studio the opportunity to hold off Morbius’ release a few more months, even if it means the movie potentially losing any potential knock-on effects from coming out close to a somewhat-connected project. Morbius, of course, is set in the same parallel universe as Venom, and yet also somehow features Spider-Man: Homecoming’s Michael Keaton as the Vulture in some capacity.
Why and how? Well, now we’ll find out at the beginning of April. Or, perhaps like Morbius itself at this point, we’ll be made fools of once more if it gets another delay.
Editor’s Note: Release dates within this article are based in the U.S., but will be updated with local Australian dates as soon as we know more.