First trailer for Jared Leto’s Morbius reveals Spidey spinoff horror and teases MCU link

Jared Leto goes from playing the Joker, to playing Batman. Well, not really. He's a man with bat-related powers, aka Marvel's Living Vampire in the first horrific trailer for Sony's live-action Morbius film.

Helmed by Daniel Espinosa (Life), the film follows Michael Morbius (Leto), a scientist trying to cure himself of a rare blood disease. Instead of curing himself, however, Morbius accidentally becomes a vampire-like being with heightened abilities.

Guided by a lifelong mentor (Chernobyl's Jared Harris), Michael uses his vampiric abilities to fight supernatural threats. All the while, he's hunted by FBI agent, Simon Stroud (Tyrese Gibson). The movie's main villain is Loxias Crown (aka Hunger), played by Doctor Who's Matt Smith.

No, your eyes are not deceiving you! That was Michael Keaton at the end of the trailer, which suggests that Michael Morbius exists within the same reality as Adrien Toomes (Vulture from Spider-Man: Homecoming), which means that this feature is set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Or at least MCU-adjacent. One keen-eyed fan even noted Keaton's character is wearing the same prison jump suit he was last seen wearing in the Spider-Man pics.

Hurray for inter-studio cooperation! Does this mean we'll get to see Tom Holland's Peter Parker meet Tom Hardy's Eddie Brock in Venom 2? The odds are looking better, especially considering the Spider-Man poster hanging in the background of a different shot in the trailer above (with "murderer" scrawled over it, perhaps a reference to that twist ending to Far From Home?).

Adria Arjona co-stars as Michael's fiancée, Martine Bancroft.

Created by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane in the early '70s, Morbius the Living Vampire started off as a clear-cut antagonist for Spider-Man before evolving into a more nuanced antihero.

Written by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless, Morbius begins its search for blood on July 31, 2020.

---