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While Morbius’ latest delay comes in the face of pandemic concerns, it could also accommodate reshoot material following Spider-Man: No Way Home.
WARNING: The following contains minor spoilers for Spider-Man: No Way Home, now in theaters.
Less than a month ahead of its expected theatrical release, Sony announced it is pushing back the release date for Morbius once again, this time to April 1, 2022. This is the seventh change in theatrical release dates for Morbius, with the film originally slated for a July 2020 premiere before continually shuffling its release date due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic sweeping across the globe. And though this latest delay comes in the face of resurgent pandemic concerns as infection rates rise due to the Omicron variant, Morbius‘ shift in release schedule could also be to accommodate Spider-Man: No Way Home and Sony’s plans for their licensed Marvel characters.
No Way Home is a film that, despite rampant speculation regarding its plot details and fan expectations through the roof, managed to deliver and become the biggest movie of 2021. True to widespread rumors, No Way Home opens up the Marvel Cinematic Universe into a full-fledged multiverse, including the appearance of Venom, briefly paying off a tease at the end of Venom: Let There Be Carnage, as Eddie Brock and his symbiote arrived in the MCU and left a piece of themselves behind. And with speculation regarding Morbius’ place in the growing Marvel Cinematic Multiverse still unclear, the major clue to Morbius’ connection to the MCU and potential cause for the delay could hinge on the return of Adrian Toomes, the Vulture.
Portrayed by Michael Keaton, Toomes made his MCU debut in 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming, with the movie ending with Tom Holland’s Spider-Man defeating the winged supervillain, resulting in Toomes’ imprisonment. Keaton resurfaces in the trailers for Morbius, wearing a similar prisoner uniform to one he donned in Homecoming, though he was not initially confirmed to be reprising his role as Toomes in the Sony film. However, Keaton confirmed this past November he was indeed portraying Toomes once again for Morbius, and, more intriguingly, that he still had more material to film as the Vulture for an unspecified Sony project.
While Sony has plenty of Spider-Man-related projects in various stages of development, none are currently known to be in principal photography. This makes Morbius, the most likely candidate for Keaton to be filming additional material as the Vulture for, potentially for a mid or post-credits scene that could explain the film’s connection to the MCU and tease where Toomes will resurface next. If Keaton did film material for Morbius, the latest delay could accommodate the reshoot footage being incorporated into the movie and one that could further develop the wider multiverse that No Way Home and Let There Be Carnage has steadily begun to tie together.
Another distinct possibility is that Keaton’s additional material as Toomes could be for a Marvel Studios project, including Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which underwent its own round of reshoots and could account for Toomes appearing both in the MCU and whatever universe Morbius may be set in. Reports indicated the reshoots would add more MCU cameos to the film, and, if Toomes is in multiple universes, he would be a prime candidate, especially as the reshoots for Multiverse of Madness continued into November, the same month as Keaton’s comments about reprising his role as the Vulture.
The MCU has been quickly expanding into a full-on multiverse, and while several major heroes are at the heart of this expansion, one surprising supervillain that appears to bridge the two together is the Vulture. Following No Way Home, Morbius is the next film to showcase Sony’s plans for its library of Marvel properties and reshoot material featuring the Vulture and leaning further into the multiverse could at least partially account for the latest delay. In the meantime, audiences have three more months to speculate on how the Vulture and Morbius figure into the growing multiverse, with the promise of more footage featuring Keaton’s Toomes on the way.
To see whether No Way Home affected Sony’s next Spider-Man venture, Morbius opens in theaters April 1.
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