Big news has just arrived from Sony Pictures: Daniel Espinosa is set to direct the Morbius Spider-Man spin-off film and it will star none other than The Joker himself…Jared Leto! The Suicide Squad actor will bring the character to life in the Sony project, from screenwriters Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama. Deadline describes the project as follows:
“Dr. Michael Morbius, a biochemist who in an attempt to cure a fatal blood disease injects himself with a treatment serum derived from bats. He becomes the anti-hero Morbius. He has all the qualities of a vampire, including a taste for human blood.”
Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach and Lucas Foster will produce the film along with Sony’s Palak Patel. This is the fourth Spider-Man spin-off film to be coming to the Sony-Marvel universe that the studio is developing, outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Venom will be hitting theaters later this year, with Silver and Black currently in redevelopment stages. It was recently revealed that the character of Silk is also getting her own live-action adaptation movie.
Ruben Fleischer’s Venom, starring Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock, Michelle Williams as Anne Weying, Riz Ahmed, Jenny Slate, and Reid Scott, is set to hit theaters on October 5.
Bob Persichetti and Peter Ramsey’s Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, starring Shameik Moore as Miles Morales a.k.a. Spider-Man, Mahershala Ali as Aaron Davis a.k.a. Prowler, Brian Tyree Henry as Jefferson Davis and Liev Schreiber, hits theaters on December 14.