Morbius has been delayed so many times over the past couple of years that it’s got to the point where fans will only believe it’s actually coming out when they’re sitting in the theater watching it. But one unintended upside of the Sony movie’s many holds-up is that it now follows the phenomenally successful Spider-Man: No Way Home, which should act as the perfect lead-in for a film that has its own multiversal crossover elements.
In fact, fans have wondered if the most recent release shuffle — which pushed it back from January to April — happened so that changes could be made in the wake of No Way Home. ComicBook.com asked director Daniel Espinosa outright if there were any truth to this, and the filmmaker gave an intriguing response.
“Yes and no,” Espinosa replied, before elaborating that Morbius‘ multiversal interests pre-dated No Way Home and were more of an evolution of concepts introduced in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The director explained:
“You know, because the idea of the kind of parallel universes was really introduced, not into the kind of Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it was introduced within the, within cinema, if you’d call it in Spider-Verse, which was released by Sony and, you know produced by Avi Arad, who also produced Morbius. So the concept of, you know, of starting to work with, you know, parallel kind of verses was something that existed prior to the Spider-Man movie.”
Espinosa continued by pointing out that the history of comic book crossovers was also an influence, before finally confirming that “visual elements” from No Way Home were incorporated into Morbius.
“And it’s also been something that has existed for years in comic books,” Espinosa added. “You know, us who read comic books, we knew about it, you know for like 15 or 20 years, you know, as soon as the kind of clone era died with Spider-Man, you know, the verses kind kind of took a hold. And so, but when Spider-Man came there were certain kind of visual elements of how those kind of transitions looked like that were informative.”
By the sounds of it, then, no major alterations were made following Spider-Man‘s release, but the film’s visual effects underwent a revamp in order to make sure they matched up with what was seen in No Way Home. Does this mean we’re going to be seeing some multiversal portals in the film? Is that how Michael Keaton’s Vulture shows up in the Sonyverse? Or is Espinosa hinting at what fans are really hoping is going to happen, that Tom Holland is going to drop by for a cameo as Peter Parker?
If you can believe it, there’s not much longer left to go until Morbius finally arrives. Catch it in cinemas from April 1.