It Morbin’ Time again, apparently, as Sony returns Morbius to theaters this weekend
Sony hasn't answered why Jared Leto's film, which departed theaters a few weeks ago, is suddenly back in markets across the U.S. this Friday
Aux News Morbius
What hath irony wrought?
That’s the questions on our mind tonight, after reports—including one from our sister site Gizmodo—that Morbius is coming back to theaters this weekend, a surprising move that studio Sony has confirmed, but not deigned to explain to us mere non-living-vampires.
Although we don’t have exact numbers, we can confirm through a trawl of Fandango that the Jared Leto-starring film has been booked for one or two showings a day in major movie markets across the United States for the next week, starting on Friday, June 3—despite the fact that, per Box Office Mojo, it was down to just 83 screens total over Memorial Day weekend, bringing in a paltry $35,360 in the process.
We’ve got our fingers crossed that this is some sort of weird procedural move from Sony, possibly as an effort to goose the film’s domestic box office just a bit before it leaves theaters for good. (The movie did quite a bit better in global markets than in the U.S.; as is, its Stateside numbers are trailing a few million behind its budget, which was reportedly in the $75 million range.) Because the alternative is that all those damn Morbius memes have had a real impact on a major studio’s film programming logic, which is a very depressing thought.
Oh, don’t play coy: You know exactly which memes we meme. Morbius has become the Shrek of modern superhero films that are also somehow vampire movies of late, inspiring legions of online fans to flood Twitter with the word “Morb” in defiance of God and all rational sense. There’ve already been hoaxes surrounding a possible Morbius 2; it’s not hard, in that context, to see this theatrical return as a trial balloon by Sony to see if all those weird Twitch streams and low-res GIFs amount to any kind of real-world cash.
The real issue is that Morbius really doesn’t seem to deserve any of this—and we don’t necessarily mean that in a sympathetic or complimentary sense. The majority of reviews for the film have noted that it would actually be considerably better if it operated at the level of camp or sheer ineptitude that its online reputation might suggest; instead, it’s mostly been drubbed as a fairly boring, surprisingly boilerplate version of mid-tier superhero cinema. (If nothing else, it’s hard to imagine there isn’t infinitely more creativity to be found in the hordes of Morbius memes on the internet than the actual film.)
Anyway: We regret to inform you that it is, somehow *sigh*…Morbin’ time once again. Prepare yourselves accordingly.
46 Comments
“Oh, don’t play coy: You know exactly which memes we meme. “At the very least I hope you hate yourself after typing stuff like that.
I’m legitimately not sure if GMG and its offshoots are consciously endlessly depositing these same memes back and forth into one another’s mouths or if they’re all just stuck in individual How Do You Do Fellow Kids loops that they’ve created a full Stand Alone Complex-style Stand Alone Complex.
I’m picturing a Human Centipede of memes now that’s exactly what I need tyvm!
Probably not any more than they hate themselves after continuing to write absolutely anything at all for this flaming shit smear of a website.
I’m gonna morb again after hearing this news
At least clean up after yourself this time.
There’s only so many socks…
No morbin in here.Morb out front shoulda toldya.
Sounds like you may be able to Morb in public this weekend!
Come on let’s morb again! Like we did last summer!
Yeah let’s morb again – like we did last year!
Do you remember when things were really morbin’?
Yeah, let’s morb again, morbin’ time is here
-30 Seconds to Mars feat. Chubby Checker
What are some other movies that aren’t as entertainingly bad as their reputation?
Rocky Horror?
Manos: The Hands of Fate is one of them. MST3k made it palatable, if you watch the actual film it’s boring as hell. Though I remember thinking there were a few sparks of good ideas in it, the entire execution was so inept you just find yourself wanting it to end.
Yes. Manos is truly unwatchable. This might actually make it the worst movie ever because at least things like The Room, Troll 2, etc. are entertainingly bad.
It’s definitely near the bottom and one of the first ones that comes to mind. After watching it once out of curiosity I felt bad for the MST3k writers who probably had to watch it at least 2 or 3 times.
Those movies achieved their reputation on their own, not with the help of something like MST3K’s riffing. I do think that Manos isn’t the worst film they ever did; that dishonor would go to something like The Castle of Fu Manchu.
I am completely willing to entertain the possibility that there are even worse examples of dreck that I haven’t seen yet.
Gave it a rewatch on the weekend on digital, it isn’t some memeable irony masterpiece or the pile of garbage on the other side. It’s fine, there’s some decent weird Vampire stuff, the cop bringing holy water to the interogation is a ok chuckle, the FX kinda bobble between cool and ugly, and Matt Smith dances with evil. Still don’t know how the hell the ending ties into No Way Home’s spell though unless, yes, Toomes was always from the Venom/Morbius/probably ASM verse. Or Madame Web explains it.
What I found weird is that the movie is edited to be one giant single take because there are very few lull points for character development.
It sort of half-assedly tries at the start to develop with the flashbacks to Kid Milo and Kid Morbius, and something with Morbius’ doctor partner early on although it is better when it gives up and just has some weird-looking Vampire bits and Matt Smith hamming it up. I did like when Morbius does the whole “not that kind of vampire” sunlight gag. Ha ha funny, not hilarious. But with all the damn trailers put out for years, it actually didn’t spoil the Milo vampire Matt Smith bit (he’s barely/not even in the trailers it seems)I do actually quite like the last 5 minutes though with all the giant wave of vampire bats that takes out Milo, that looked very comic-book-y. Only took hour and half to get there.
This is probably the smartest thing Sony Pictures has done since greenlighting Spider-Verse
I hope Sony give answer
Probably the weakest major production studio out of all of them, the last good film they were a part of was Get Out. Though they do own Columbia which actually has a history of doing quality films.
Get out was universal
Im an idiot, it was Don’t Breath. Thank you for the correction. Sorry, mixed them up, it was a good couple years of thriller/horror.
All good. But yeah f Sony for enabling that creep Leto.
Now’s as good a time as any to break this out:
How Meta.This movie has risen from the dead
“memes have had a real impact on a major studio’s film programming logic, which is a very depressing thought”I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Space Jam 2 happened. A movie reliant on memes for humor and basically summoned into being by memes. Be depressed if you want, but this is definitely an attempt to capitalize on the movie’s meme status
Snakes on a Plane
Good callout. Snakes was one of the earliest meme movies.
“The fuck is a meme? Anyway, sure, we’ll suck some more money out of these dumbfuck kids.” – Sony
My favorite is when Little Kuriboh put out a video of what the first Yu Gi Oh Abridged episode would have looked like if released during the wave of such projects it inspired. Instead of “Screw the rules, I have money,” the line would have been “Internet memes!”
I was not morbing that.
My biggest interest is how, given that Sony is apparently determined to make every Sinister Six member a sympathetic anti-villain, they end up giving themselves that name.
Terminator Genysis, Morbius, House of the Dragon…Matt Smith’s big thing seems to be joining big franchises, but only the parts that no one cares about.
The crown would like a word
I know it’s a cliché to say this about an actor but I think it’s totally warranted in this case:Matt Smith REALLY needs to fire his agent.
F Leto.
Its 100% the memes. You know this. DON’T SHY AWAY FROM THE TRUTH!
I can’t help but wonder if this Morbius meme shit is not actually studio driven. How expensive could it be to hire some up and coming viral marketing experts to try to promote the home release of a bomb? Even if Morbius its not the case with Morbius, its setting a trend that I can’t help but expect others will try to replicate
I don’t think so because 1) memes are incredibly hard to “force” and Sony’s marketing department are most definitely not the geniuses who managed to crack that code and 2) a huge part of the Morbius memes involved coming up with creative ways to pirate it via Twitch and Discord and lol if you think ANY corporation would incentivize that, even for marketing purposes.
yeah they might have jumped onto it after the fact but there’s no way it was orchestrated by them. it was some random twitter personality’s joke that stuck.
memes are incredibly hard to “force” and Sony’s marketing department are most definitely not the geniuses who managed to crack that code I have a friend who still swears Chad Warden was a viral marketing stunt from Sony. I’m not so sure about all that, but it would go down as probably the most successful meme ad campaign ever.
So bad I couldn’t get through it the first time so I tried to finish it stoned. Unfortunately, it’s not even enjoyably bad. It’s even worse than that new Dr. Strange, which set a pretty high bar.
In the sequel I sure hope he fights Crusher Creel, The Absmorbing Man.