While Joaquin Phoenix takes over Joker duties at DC, Jared Leto has moved on to a different comic book character – Morbius the Living Vampire. He’s currently shooting Sony’s latest Spidey spin-off, envisioned as a Venom-alike solo entry, and considering how the star power of Tom Hardy worked out for that one at the box office, putting Leto in the lead is a smart move. With production underway, Leto shared a cryptic teaser on his social media pages – and while we’re not seeing him all vamped-out quite yet, this could be the first look at his human side as Michael Morbius.
“Because no one else will walk this path... this place of shadows, where we do what must be done, no matter the cost,” he wrote as a caption to the new image. In the comics, Michael Morbius is a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist who tries to cure a rare blood disease using an experimental treatment that combines electroshock therapy and vampire bats. No prizes for guessing what the experiment turns him into. Like more traditional vampires, he ingests blood to live, shies away from bright lights, can fly, and has superhuman strength and fast healing. The main difference is that he doesn’t create additional vampires.
Morbius is being directed by Daniel Espinosa, previously behind sci-fi horror Life, and also stars Matt Smith and Jared Harris. It’s due to swoop into cinemas next summer on 31 July 2020, with a Venom sequel expected to follow in October.
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