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The Big Picture
Keaton’s return as Vulture in
Morbius
left both fans and Keaton himself baffled, with no clear explanation for his presence.
The film struggles to connect to the wider Marvel Universe, with Keaton’s cameo exemplifying the confusion surrounding its place.
Despite attempts to build a
Spider-Man
universe without Spider-Man,
Morbius
falls short of establishing a coherent superhero universe.
In a surprising twist that left both fans and the film’s creative team scratching their heads, Michael Keaton reprised his role as Adrian Toombs (a.k.a. Vulture) from Spider-Man: Homecoming in the Sony Pictures film Morbius. This decision raised many eyebrows at the time, not least because of the seemingly disjointed narrative threads connecting Morbius to the broader Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Spider-Man Sony films. Well, the good news is, if you were confused, so is the man himself, as he explained to Josh Horowitz on the Happy, Sad, Confused podcast when asked if he knew why he was in the movie.
Keaton’s Vulture was shown, presumably as part of the multiverse-breaking events of Spider-Man: No Way Home, being transferred to the universe in which Morbius took place. When meeting with the title character, played by Jared Leto, Toombs almost waves it off saying he doesn’t know how he got there but that it was “something to do with Spider-Man, I think”. Spider-Man who, to the best of our knowledge, does not exist in this universe apart from via graffiti.
Keaton, known for his good humour when interview, hilariously expressed his confusion about this crossover. “No. No idea. None. Zero. I mean, even they couldn’t quite explain it,” Keaton remarked, highlighting the ambiguity surrounding his character’s bizarre post-credits reappearance. This sentiment was not isolated to Keaton alone; it appears that the ambiguity extended to the creative team behind Morbius as well. Keaton’s recounting of conversations with Leto, further emphasises this point.
“He [Jared Leto] said ‘Look, let me tell you’ and I had no idea who any of these people are. And they told me the plans for down the road, here’s what’s going to happen and I said okay, I’m in. Let’s just try it.”
Why Did ‘Morbius’ Flop?
Image via Sony/Columbia Pictures
Despite its impressive cast and ambitious connection to the larger Marvel and Sony Spider-Man films, Morbius received a lukewarm — if we’re being generous — reception from both critics and audiences. The film struggled to establish a coherent link with its supposed franchise counterparts, leading to confusion about its place within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Sony Spider-Man universe, or indeed, any universe. The decision to include Keaton’s character, a villain from an indirectly related Spider-Man film, without a clear narrative justification, exemplified the broader issues facing the film’s reception and the challenges of managing interconnected superhero universes.
To date, Sony’s attempts to build a Spider-Man universe without a Spider-Man involved have been largely unsuccessful. The betting would be that Keaton won’t be appearing in those Sony films again. Morbius can be seen on Disney+.
Morbius
Release Date April 1, 2022
Runtime 104 minutes
Writers Matt Sazama , Burk Sharpless , Art Marcum , Matt Holloway , Roy Thomas , Gil Kane