Exclusive: Jared Leto Wants Creative Control Of Morbius 2
According to our trusted and proven sources, Jared Leto will only make Morbius 2 if he gets creative control.
This article is more than 2 years old
The cultural conversation around Sony’s Morbius, the comic book adaptation of Marvel’s Living Vampire, will never end. It is fated to be so. That can be the only explanation we have that one of the poorest performing would-be blockbuster films in recent memory is still being discussed as a potential candidate for sequel treatment. More specifically, according to our trusted and proven sources, Jared Leto is very eager to make Morbius 2, but one the condition that he be given complete creative control of the picture this time around.
The very idea of Jared Leto in Morbius 2 is so powerful that it created a popular meme and a brief collective of people who were amused by creating a shared imaginary universe in which the first Morbius was a colossal commercial and critical success. Also, people who just like typing out “It’s Morbin’ time!” However, the first Morbius movie was in reality such a box office flop that the existence of this meme convinced desperate Sony executives that they could attempt to recoup some losses with a second wide release of the film, which flopped even harder. Once Jared Leto got on board with the theoretical hilarity and made a video of himself reading a fake script for Morbius 2 (complete with his own pseudonym lifted from Doctor Suess, Bartholomew Cubbins), things crashed hard.
However, it appears that Jared Leto feels there is still demand for a Morbius 2 out there. From what we are told, Jared Leto was unsatisfied with Morbius on both a commercial and artistic level and has let Sony Pictures know that he wants full creative control on the sequel. We do not know whether that means that Jared Leto wants to direct a hypothetical Morbius 2 or write one or simply write down ideas on a napkin for other people to string together. For what it’s worth, Jared Leto currently has 17 directorial credits on IMDb, all but one of which are projects related to his rock band 30 Seconds to Mars. He has one writing credit on IMDb, which is also related to 30 Second to Mars. However, there are many creative people involved in a project as huge as a blockbuster film, so it indeed might come down to Jared Leto’s ideas for Morbius 2.
The creative input of Jared Leto on Morbius 2 is quite hypothetical at this point. The first film made something in the region of $83 million (by the most optimistic of calculations); with a reported budget of $163 million, that is an enormous shortfall for Sony Pictures. Jared Leto apparently is very open to appearing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe or teaming up with or fighting Tom Hardy’s Venom or showing up in a Spiderverse movie, which shows he is certainly committed to the character. Sony Pictures is pretty invested in their growing shared universe of Spider-Man movies without Spider-Man, if the existence of Madame Web is any indication, so there is always the remote possibility of a Morbius 2 actually happening. At the very least, it would make Jared Leto happy.
