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'Morbius' director teases what's to come after those Marvel-ous credits scenes: 'They have a plan'
The Morbius director talks putting those teaser scenes together, and what Sony's planning.
Virtually every movie with an established comic book universe has teaser scenes embedded in the credits these days. It's something we expect, so the question becomes not if a credits scene will exist, but what the credits scene tells us about the next phase of whichever cinematic universe we're watching at the time. Some of these scenes, sadly, tease things that never come to fruition, while others tease things that take years to play out in the actual films. Then there are the credits scenes that know exactly what they want to say, and say it with sometimes surprising directness.
Morbius, the new film in Sony's growing cinematic universe of Spider-Man-related characters, fits firmly in this latter category. The new film from director Daniel Espinosa (Life) has not one, but two credits scenes, both of which point a very specific direction in terms of this universe's path forward. Now, Espinosa is opening up on how the scenes came together, what they mean, and what he personally might like to see next.
**SPOILER WARNING: Spoilers below for Morbius!**
As the Morbius trailers have teased ever since this film was supposed to open back in 2020, we do finally get an appearance from Michael Keaton's Vulture in Sony's universe. We just have to wait until the very end of the film to get it, when a rift between universe's opens up and deposits him a jail cell in Morbius' world. Since he's not actually a criminal in this universe, the man from the MCU is allowed to walk free, and promptly decides it's time to build a new flight suit and go looking for some answers. Once he gets those things done, he arranges a meeting with Morbius, and proposes a team-up.
It's all very frank, but of course we don't know much about exactly how this new team will work just yet, or what their goals might be. Speaking to Variety about the credits scenes, Espinosa noted that he doesn't know much either, but it's clear that executives at Sony Pictures have an idea.
"Ever since they released Venom, Sony’s confidence has built," Espinosa said. "With Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, much to the credit of those writers and directors, it’s one of the best comic book movies ever made. It also changed the cinematic universe and the way that Sony, in that movie, took up this idea of all these parallel timelines. Now they’re making Kraven, so I think they are looking into the future. But I don’t know much about exactly where they’re heading. They would kill me if I said something, but I don’t know much. I just know that they have a plan. And they said that there are certain things that are going to be unearthed, like all these questions that exist. Does there exist a Spider-Man in their universe? Who should it be? There is an answer coming, apparently, and I’m looking forward to it."
In teasing out Sony's "plan," Espinosa brought up what might be the central question to emerge from the Morbius credits scenes: What's the deal with Spider-Man in this universe? Spider-Man: No Way Home was nice enough to remind us that three cinematic Peter Parkers already exist (not counting the animated ones off doing their own thing), and that they all have their share of villains. Could Andrew Garfield or Tobey Maguire be suiting up to battle these emerging bad guys in the Sony-verse? Will an entirely new Wall Crawler show up there somewhere down the line? Espinosa could offer only a somewhat philosophical answer to the "Where's Spider-Man?" question, at least for the moment.
"You know, because you read the comics, in all these universes there’s a spider because he’s a totem," he said. "He’s a fundamental being; there’s always a spider on Earth."
As Espinosa hinted, there are already corners of this universe in the works that he's not involved in, including Aaron Taylor-Johnson's Kraven the Hunter film next year, the recently announced Madame Web movie, and much more. There's a lot of ambition behind what's going on over at Sony, and at least in terms of Morbius and the Vulture, the intent to form some kind of team is clear. What's still not clear is exactly where that team-up will take things next, but we know we'll be following along.
