For the past few months, a lot of people have been sharing memes connected to terrible superhero film Morbius, which stars noted method actor Jared Leto as a living vampire guy or something…look, I’ve not seen the film, okay? Anyway, all these memes, jokes, and online ha-has have been fun, but things are getting out of control. Sony—likely seeing all the renewed interest in Morbius and all things morbin’—has now brought the movie back to theaters. What have we done?
Morbius was released back in April to very negative reviews. For those who aren’t aware, it’s a Sony Marvel movie, not an MCU joint. This means it can tease at connections to the more popular, successful MCU films, but will likely never be allowed to truly join in all the money-making fun of Iron Man and Dr. Strange.
Making only about $170 million at the box office, Morbius should have slid off into the night to go die in a field, or whatever happens to unsuccessful comic book movies. But the future Oscar winner got a second wind upon its release on digital streaming, after which the Morbius memes exploded thanks in large part to a Twitch channel that began streaming the movie 24/7. Here’s what Kotaku’s own Jeremy Winslow reported last week:
Thanks to the film’s proliferation on Twitch since at least May 24, a glut of Morbius memes have started infiltrating the internet. There’s Twitter user Rama_Firmansya’s hilarious “History of Morbius Meme” a timeline spanning 2016 to 2022 that charts our progression from “hugh mungus” to “amongus” to “morbius.” There are a variety of box art memes of Morbius as a Nintendo DS, Switch, and Wii game—a trilogy, if you will. Hell, I even spotted an entire Twitch channel named morbing_man that was only streaming Morbius memes before the company yeeted it into space. The memes are everywhere at this point, like a virus. Like a…morbius?
And all of this has led to something very strange. Sony, seemingly reacting to all this newfound buzz and online morbin’, has brought the film back to theaters. As reported by Exhibitor Relations on Twitter, Sony has confirmed that Morbius will be back in 1,037 theaters this weekend, over two months after it first opened. And I’ve already spotted at least a few folks who’ve bought tickets.
Sony hasn’t yet confirmed why the film is heading back to so many theaters so long after its initial release. It’s safe to assume that it has to do something with the sudden spike in online chatter, but you never know. Maybe Sony just really liked Morbius and wanted to share it with folks.
Kotaku has reached out to Sony about the film’s sudden return to theaters.
Unfortunately, all this brouhaha could lead to an even darker future in which Morbius gets a sequel. And sure, we’re all having a good laugh at the “Morbin’ Time” jokes, but it’s time to stop. The world doesn’t need to give possible cult leader Jared Leto a successful C-grade superhero franchise, let alone more money. Please, stop morbin’ so much, folks. There’s still time. We can still stop Sony from making Morbius 2.
Maybe you think it won’t be so bad? Perhaps you even liked the first film? But if we get a sequel, you better believe Sony will make the people behind it cram in memes, inside jokes, references to the existing memes, and god forbid, more morbin’.
But then again, that also sounds…amazing?
Okay, never mind, I’m in. Morb your brains out and get us a terrible, meme-filled, far-too-late sequel that completely misses the trend and ends up being a wild shitshow. Perhaps that will finally kill the living vampire, and with any luck, Leto’s career.
