Being a superhero movie fan, the desire to know about the cast of Morbius is legit. Marvel and Columbia Production’s release, Morbius, is an American superhero film.
Deriving from the Marvel comics character Morbius, the movie marks the third film in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. The chief distributor of the film is Sony Pictures Releasing. So, let’s talk about the Morbius cast.
Before delving into that, we can also look at how long is Morbius, a little about its background, and its plot lines.
Table of Contents
A brief background
With a mix of vampire stories and superhero manifestations, Morbius has all the catch-all trends to be a hit on the silver screen. Thus, from the very beginning, there have been attempts to realize this dream of making a movie out of Morbius since 1998.
There were plans to feature Morbius as an antagonist in the Blade franchise or feature him as a solo by Artisan Entertainment. However, all these were lucid dreams which never saw daylight.
However, with Venom hitting the market in 2018, Sony gradually started weaving threads to bring Morbius to the silver screen. Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama prepared the script by 2017.
Daniel Espinoza, the director and Jarred Leto, one of the most crucial cast of Morbius, finally joined the team in 2018. By the year’s end, the film’s pre-production and production began in full swing.
Finally, by June 2019, the entire movie was filmed. However, in February 2020, some of it was also reshot. March 10, 2022, marks when the movie premiered in Mexico City’s Plaza Carso.
It hit theatres in the United States on April 1, 2022. However, as you can probably guess, it would have been released in 2020. But, the pandemic delayed the release by two years.
However, the cinema received little critical acclaim and gained much at the box office. But its popularity continued. Fans are crazy about the cast of Morbius. So, let’s now have a brief look at the film’s storyline.
Plot
The beginning
Michael Morbius and Lucien are surrogate brothers. Morbius meets him in a Greek hospital when the former is just 10 years old. However, both of them had some kind of blood illness.
In their quest to be expected, they bonded well. Nicholas is the director of the hospital as well as the adoptive father of the two. While Morbius grows up to attend a medical school in New York, Nicholas keeps Milo (Lucien’s new name) close to care for him.
Time passes, and Morbius became a popular name in the scientific community. He even declines Nobel Prize. Martine Bancroft, his colleague, discovers that Morbius had captured many vampire bats from Costa Rica. The motivation behind doing this was to replace their blood with his to get rid of his medical condition.
Morbius lets Milo know and receives funding to carry out this experiment in a mercenary vessel in international waters.
The cure doesn’t go in vain, but Morbius transforms into a vampire. He then kills the crew members when they attack him. Once all of this rage subsides, Morbius gets back to his senses. He erases all the CCTV footage of his experiment.
The vampire life
After returning to New York, he realizes he is bestowed with superhuman abilities. His blood lust is met by artificial blood until that stops working.
Al Rodriguez and Simon Stroud are the two FBI agents investigating Morbius’ victims. Milo gets to know that Morbius has cured his disease. However, he refuses to cure Milo as it will transform him into a vampire. Not knowing the reason for the refusal, Milo gets infuriated.
Meanwhile, Bancroft is hospitalized. While Morbius visits him, he finds a nurse dead and is drained of her blood. He thinks that he has done this and hence attempts to escape. But Stroud captures him and arrests him.
Milo visits him in prison and says he can free him with his wealth. He realizes it is Milo who killed the nurse. So, he escapes the prison to face him. Even if Milo confesses, Morbius cannot come to terms with him being a vampire. So, he flees the scene.
Later, he lets Bancroft know that Milo has cured himself and turned himself into a vampire. After that, he plans to set up a new lab to discover an antigen against vampirism which will eventually kill Milo. Also, he will use that on himself as his blood thirst soar.
Rodriguez and Stroud, meanwhile, find the footage of Milo’s deeds. They think Morbius’ vampirism is spreading and uploading on the internet.
Nicholas recognizes him and urges him to stop. However, Milo mistakes this to be a preference of Nicholas for Morbius and hence wounds Nicholas and makes him call Morbius.
However, he arrives late, and Nicholas is beyond saving. Milo also attacks Bancroft and fatally injures her. She dies in Morbius’ hands.
The climax
After this, an encounter between Milo and Morbius happens where the latter summons a flock of bats. They restrain him when Morbius injects the antibody.
Milo dies and Morbius flies away. He, however, mourns the loss of his loved ones. But he does what Milo asked him to do before. He embraces himself as a vampire.
Before dying, Bancroft had asked Morbius to drink her blood. So, after that incident, she revives as a red-eyed vampire about whom Morbius had no idea.
There are two mid-credits scenes in this film. Here, we see Adrian Toomes in Morbius’ universe. Through the involvement of Spider-man, this transportation took place. Adrian then goes to Morbius and proposes that they form a team.
Now, let’s have a closer look at the cast of Morbius that makes the entire universe of Morbius.
Cast of Morbius
Here are the main characters that bring Morbius to life:
Jared Leto
He is one of the most towering cast of Morbius. He acts in the significant role of Michael Morbius. Michael Morbius suffers from a blood disease.
To cure himself of that disease, he resorts to blood from bats. However, in the process, he gets transformed into a vampire.
As his blood thirst rises, his conflict with his inner self also rises. Eventually, that leads to further complications.
Jared Leto was especially drawn to this moral conflict of the film’s hero. Had it been the case that Morbius came to terms with his vampire hood, the character wouldn’t have been that attractive.
The role was also very challenging to Leto, as it needed to be character-driven. Instead, it was closer to reality.
We all have some evil sides of ours that we deny outright. However, complications arise when that evil side slips into our daily lives. So, the vampire-human interface in Morbius’ character can be read in that line.
Charlie Shotwell is the actor who portrays Morbius in his childhood.
Milo
The cast of Morbius includes Matt Smith, who plays the role of Lucien or Milo. Morbius gives Lucien, his surrogate brother, the name Milo.
He also suffers from the same disease as Morbius. However, moral conflict is absent in Milo’s character. He is someone who has embraced his reality as a vampire.
Initially, Smith was cast in the character Hunger or Loxias Crown, which features in the comic book version of the movie. However, this character transformed.
Smith turned down other roles in other superhero films. But, Daniel Espinosa encouraged him to do this film and motivated him to bring out a villainous essence in this film. Karen Gillan also urged him to do this film, who was his castmate in Doctor Who. Karen Gillan plays the role of Nebula in Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Joseph Esson plays the role of young Lucien.
Bancroft
The female cast of Morbius includes Adria Arjona, who plays the character of Dr. Martine Bancroft. She was a colleague of Morbius and a scientist in her name.
Milo killed her, and she died in Morbius’ arms. This cast of Morbius has left a lasting impression.
However, when Morbius sucked her blood, she ingested some drops of his blood. So, later, she revived as a red-eyed vampire, about which Morbius had no idea.
According to Arjona, she liked the character because of her smartness. Also, she mainly drew inspiration for the character from the American activist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Nicholas
Jared Harris, a cast of Morbius, plays the role of Dr. Emil Nicholas. Nicholas is the hospital director where Milo was born, in Greece.
He is also the adoptive father of Milo and Morbius. His facility looked after people who had incurable diseases. However, in a turn of fate, he dies due to an attack by Milo.
Rodriguez
Al Madrigal portrays the character of Al Rodriguez, the FBI agent and the partner of Simon Stroud.
Stroud
Tyrese Gibson is another cast of Morbius. He plays the character of Simon Stroud. The feeling was initially white. However, he was cast as Black in the movie, and Tyrese Gibson played the role.
So, for those who were eager to know Morbius on Disney Plus, here is your brief exposure to the characters.
Morbius’ connection with Spider-verse
The reveal of Adrian Toomes gave rise to speculations regarding Morbius’ connection with Spider-verse. Also, the trailer had a reference to Venom in November 2021. Furthermore, Espinosa suggested that Morbius belongs to the same universe as Venom.
Will there be a Morbius sequel
Sony has not revealed Morbius 2 release date.
Well, where will Morbius 2 pick up? The two possible plot structures can be Vulture’s Sinister Six Tease and Martine Bancroft’s death.
In the credits of Morbius, Vulture suggests a possible teaming up between the two to combat the new fight.
Also, Martine Bancroft dies in Morbius, but at least it is seen that Martine revives as a vampire.
One might have to wait for a sequel to see what kind of vampire Martine becomes and what it means for the more significant plot line.
A sequel will likely derive its main inspiration from the comic and not any particular story if there is a sequel.
However, there has yet to be a teaser or trailer for Morbius 2. The fate of Morbius 2 is linked to the success of Morbius.
Is Morbius good?
Many spectators ask, is Morbius good? Well, it didn’t perform too well at the box office. It only made $167.7 million worldwide. It even had a re-release but that also couldn’t do any good to the film’s success.
Thus, even if there are some loose threads in the first movie, one might still speculate whether there will be a sequel.
Matt Smith didn’t take this underperformance too seriously. According to him, they were not saving someone’s life. So, after making a movie, the movie has its own life. It only affects that much if it doesn’t click with the audience at some point.
Also, there has yet to be a solid casting announcement. However, if Sony makes a sequel, the primary cast of Morbius will be back.
You can expect to see Jared Leo as Michael Morbius. Adria Arjona may join him in the new mold of a vampire. Jared Harris and Matt Smith might not return, as their characters die in the first movie.
Final Thoughts
So, if you are excited about this connection, you should attend Morbius. Even if it is not as hit at the box office as its sister films, that doesn’t mean abandoning it altogether and meanwhile waiting in anticipation for a new sequel.
