How The Morbius Trailers Lied To Us About Spider-Man And Vulture
From his first introduction in the Marvel comics, Morbius the Living Vampire has been an intriguing character on the periphery of Spider-Man's world. Sometimes an enemy, sometimes an ally, he's in a constant battle against his vampiric blood lust. Now, Sony's given him his own movie. "Morbius," starring Jared Leto as Dr. Michael Morbius, has finally hit theaters after several pandemic-related delays. However, if fans thought there'd be Easter eggs relating to Spider-Man in this movie, they'll be sorely disappointed.
Leading up to its release, though, the movie's trailers heavily teased connections to the webhead: There's a shot of Morbius in an orange jumpsuit walking past a poster of Spider-Man that has the word "murderer" graffitied across it. Plus, to add to the intrigue, there's a scene with Michael Keaton present at Morbius' arrest, who then shows up four times in the final trailer, saying something about Morbius needing to discover who he's meant to be. Both of these details got fans hyped for the movie, as they speculated whether or not Keaton was reprising his role as Adrian Toomes — the Vulture — from 2017's "Spider-Man: Homecoming" and how it might connect to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Vulture is barely in the movie, while that Spider-Man shot is nowhere to be seen
Well, the trailers lied. The Spider-Man graffiti shot isn't in the movie and "Morbius" gives no indication as to whether or not Spider-Man is slinging his way around this New York City. After the theater-saving success of the MCU's "Spider-Man: No Way Home," in which Spider-Man (Tom Holland) is framed for murder, this trailer scene appears to be little more than clickbait. However, the trailer shots of The Daily Bugle — the newspaper run by J. Jonah Jameson (J. K. Simmons) that features prominently in the Tobey Maguire "Spider-Man" trilogy — are real. The paper reports on Morbius' murder charges throughout the movie.
Additionally, the trailers imply that the Vulture has a big presence in "Morbius," but that is far from the truth. Michael Keaton — who is playing Vulture from the MCU — only shows up in the movie's two mid-credits scenes. Somehow, Peter Parker's spell mishap in "No Way Home" transports Adrian Toomes to prison in Morbius' universe. He's released, on account of having appeared there out of nowhere, promptly rebuilds his Vulture suit, and seeks out Morbius for a team-up. He mentions that he's here because of Spider-Man, but doesn't indicate what he's gonna do about it. Is this a revenge plot? The first step toward forming the Sinister Six? We don't yet know, but he should probably be thanking Spider-Man for springing him from jail.
While there's no Spidey yet, "Morbius" director Daniel Espinosa teased to CinemaBlend that we will see Spider-Man in the Morbius-Venom universe soon, which is technically called Sony's Spider-Man Universe. They'll have to live up to that name at some point, right?