Morbius Delayed by Over Two Months Over Omicron Concerns

Morbius‘ launch date has been delayed by Sony Footage. The Jared Leto-led superhero film will not launch later this month on January 28, attributable to issues across the fast-spreading Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus that has prolonged the continued COVID-19 pandemic. As a substitute, Morbius — based mostly on the Marvel Comics character of the identical identify — has been pushed again to April 1. Consequently, Morbius is not the primary superhero film of 2022. That honour now (perhaps briefly, relying on Omicron) goes to the Robert Pattinson-led The Batman, slated to launch March 4 as of now. However might 2022 be 2020 over again?

That is the fifth delay for Morbius because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier than the coronavirus despatched the world into lockdown in March 2020, the Morbius film was set for a late July 2020 launch. Morbius was first pushed to March 2021, then to October 2021, earlier than being pushed additional again to January 2022. Now, it will not launch at the very least till April 2022. That is additionally partly a results of Sony Pictures desirous to keep away from its personal releases. The Tom Hardy-starrer Venom: Let There Be Carnage took that October 2021 slot, was adopted by Ghostbusters: Afterlife in November 2021, after which Spider-Man: No Way Home in December 2021 — all in cinemas.

The final of these is particularly noteworthy given the brand new Spider-Man film continues to interrupt pandemic and non-pandemic field workplace information. Spider-Man: No Manner Residence is just not solely the biggest movie to release during the COVID-19 era, however it’s additionally the twelfth highest-grossing film of all time (and the third highest-grossing Hollywood film of all time in India). That implies audiences are keen to take dangers for motion pictures they actually wish to watch. Clearly, Morbius does not have that sort of buzz surrounding it. Furthermore, Omicron is a a lot greater menace than it was final month. And Sony Footage clearly is not keen to gamble and probably lose cash.

With Morbius getting out of the way in which, the focus will now transfer onto other big Hollywood films. The following large title is the Agatha Christie adaptation Loss of life on the Nile (February 11) that stars Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Tom Bateman, Annette Bening, Russell Model, Ali Fazal, Rose Leslie, Daybreak French, Sophie Okonedo, Jennifer Saunders, Letitia Wright, and director Kenneth Branagh. How lengthy will Disney wait earlier than it pulls the plug? Sony Footage will probably be in focus as soon as once more put up that, with its long-in-the-works adaptation of the Uncharted PlayStation online game — led by Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg — at the moment lined up for February 18.

Regionally, the hotly-anticipated interval motion drama RRR — from Baahubali director S.S. Rajamouli — has already ditched its January 7 launch date. RRR is now undated. In the meantime, the following two main titles, Prabhas-led interval romantic drama Radhe Shyam (January 14) and Akshay Kumar-starrer historic motion drama Prithviraj (January 21), are holding onto their theatrical launch dates for now.

Along with Leto as Dr. Michael Morbius who provides himself powers after unintentionally infecting himself with a type of transgenic vampirism, the Morbius film additionally stars Matt Smith as Morbius’ buddy Loxias Crown who suffers from the identical blood illness as Morbius, Adria Arjona as Morbius’ scientist fiancée Martine Bancroft, Jared Harris as Morbius’ professor mentor, Al Madrigal as an FBI agent looking Morbius, Tyrese Gibson as a superpowered FBI agent additionally looking Morbius who has a “hi-tech weapons-grade arm”, and Michael Keaton returning as Adrian Toomes/ Vulture from Spider-Man: Homecoming. Sure, Morbius is a part of Sony’s Spider-Man Universe alongside the Venom motion pictures.

Morbius is now slated to launch April 1 in cinemas worldwide. In India, Morbius will probably be out there in English, Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu.