Jared Leto won’t be flying into theaters as originally planned…
Sony has pushed back the release date for the Marvel film Morbius, starring the 50-year-old part-Spanish American Academy Award winning actor and singer.
While the Columbia Pictures title was previously scheduled to open on January 28, it will now hit theaters in IMAX and premium large formats on April 1.
One factor motivating the push, according to Deadline, was Sony’s huge (continuing) success with Spider-Man: No Way Home, which established itself as the highest-grossing film of 2021 upon its December 17 debut.
The Tom Holland film has grossed upwards of $1.37 billion worldwide so far, and it now looks to continue to do big business on the screens previously saved for Morbius.
In Morbius, from director Daniel Espinosa, Leto portrays the enigmatic antihero Michael Morbius. Dangerously ill with a rare blood disorder and determined to save others suffering his same fate, Dr. Morbius attempts a desperate gamble. While at first it seems to be a radical success, a darkness inside him is unleashed. Will good override evil—or will Morbius succumb to his mysterious new urges?
Matt Smith, Adria Arjona, Jared Harris, Al Madrigal and Tyrese Gibson also star in the film, based on the Marvel Comics, which Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless adapted from their own screen story.
Morbius would have opened on its previous date opposite IFC Films’ crime drama, Clean, starring Adrien Brody, Glenn Fleshler, Richie Merritt and Chandler DuPont; Bradley Bell and Pablo Jones-Soler’s Greenwich Entertainment music doc Charli XCX: Alone Together; and Joe Wright’s musical adaptation of Cyrano, starring Peter Dinklage, Haley Bennett and Kelvin Harrison Jr., for MGM and United Artists Releasing.
It’s now set to open against Focus Features’ horror drama You Won’t Be Alone, starring Noomi Rapace and Alice Englert; Universal’s Jo Koy comedy Easter Sunday, also starring Jimmy O. Yang, Tia Carrere, Tiffany Haddish and Lou Diamond Phillips; and STX Entertainment’s thriller The Contractor, toplined by Chris Pine.