Even though director Daniel Espinosa has already admitted that Kevin Feige had absolutely nothing to do with Morbius or the movie’s nonsensical post-credits scenes, the Marvel Cinematic Universe still had a huge bearing on the direction of the Living Vampire’s live-action debut.
Not only did Espinosa admit that he wasn’t allowed to talk to anybody involved in Spider-Man: No Way Home, but it’s established that Doctor Strange’s spell to repair the damage done to the multiverse was responsible for bringing Michael Keaton’s Adrian Toomes into Sony’s Spider-Man Universe from the MCU.
It doesn’t make a lick of sense if you think about too much, but an indirect connection has already been made between Jared Leto’s supernatural bloodsucker and Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sorcerer Supreme. Speaking to Polygon, Espinosa had no doubt which one of the two would come out in top if they ever threw down.
“I love the moment where he sucks out the life energy of Doctor Strange. I just kept pounding that to all the executives, like, You don’t get it. This guy has been on the verge of beating Doctor Strange! This is not a nobody. And we don’t really know the ends of his powers. I wanted to express the thing of – in comic books, 15 years ago, it was introduced, the idea of the Spider Totem. I always felt that the reason he beat Doctor Strange was because he in reality is the Bat, like the Totem. So in the same way as the Spider, they have an eternal amount of cosmic power to draw from.”
Whether or not the two shall ever meet remains somewhere between “up for debate” and “highly unlikely”, but at least we know who Espinosa would put his money on should Morbius and Doctor Strange ever butt heads.