Jared Leto To Star As Spider-Man Villain Morbius In Sony Solo Movie

Sony has quite a few Spider-Man spin-offs in the near future, and the next one just got its lead: Jared Leto. He is not new to the realm of comic book movies, having played The Joker in 2016's Suicide Squad. And now the Oscar-winning actor is set to portray the titular character in Sony's latest film, Morbius.

Filmmaker Daniel Espinosa (Safe House, Life) will be directing the upcoming film, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and the minds behind Netflix's Lost In Space, Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama, will be working on the script. Further details on the movie are scarce at this time.

Morbius first appeared in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man #101 back in 1971. The character was created by the legendary Roy Thomas and Gil Kane. The antihero character was originally a biochemist named Michael Morbius who was dying of an unknown blood disease. He created what he thought was a cure using the biochemisty of vampire bats; however, the side effects caused him to crave blood and become a vampire.

Morbius is just the latest film in the ever-growing Spider-Verse by Sony. A movie based on Spider-Man's most infamous enemy, Venom, is due out this October. Following that in December is the first Sony/Marvel animated film, Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse. In 2019, the second Spider-Man solo movie hits theaters, and now, aside from Morbius, there are movies in the works for Silk and a Silver Sable/Black Cat film as well. Sony is going hard to utilize the Marvel characters it has the rights to. Much like Venom, it seems likely these spin-off movies will be separate from the main Spider-Man films, which take place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

As of this writing, there's no timeframe for the release of Morbius, but it seems far off. While we wait, Leto will be starring in one of the standalone Joker movies, based on his interpretation of the character in Suicide Squad. There have been reports that Joaquin Phoenix will play the Clown Prince of Crime in an untitled origin movie.