Morbius is back in theaters — despite no one even asking for it — and its unpopularity is only making itself more obvious. The film made just $85,000 on Friday after making a return to over 1,000 theaters, bringing its domestic cumulative to $73.6 million (via Forbes).
Morbius was originally released on April 1st and wasn’t the most well-received. In The Verge’s review of the flick, our TV and film reporter, Charles Pulliam-Moore, says Morbius’ pacing, plot, and the performance of its lead actors feel “ill-conceived,” and “calls into question Sony’s grand project of building an entire cinematic universe on Spider-Man’s back.”
It’s safe to say that Sony wasn’t expecting this at all. The studio seemed so confident that this new run in theatres would turn the film’s fortunes around that it actually got Jared Leto back on board to promote it on his social media. The lead himself even tried to get in on the joke, with Leto revealing a fake script for Morbius 2: It’s Morbin’ Time. A fair amount of the replies to this are just shitposters clowning on him for yet another poor run in the box office.
Sony likely re-released the movie with the hope that renewed interest in the “it’s morbin’ time” meme would somehow trigger a second larger wave of people who would want to sit through the Spiderman spin off. But it turns out that a meme’s popularity doesn’t directly correlate to genuine interest — who could’ve guessed? Also Read: How Long Does It Take To Beat Assassin’s Creed Origins?
In an even more cringey move, Jared Leto — the star of Morbius — just had to get in on the meme, posting a video on Twitter that shows him reading from a fake script titled Morbius 2: It’s Morbin’ Time. Here’s to hoping that Sony is just trolling us all, and isn’t planning on having Dr. Morbius make a cameo in the next Spiderman with his hip new catchphrase, or, even worse, get a sequel.
