Morbius gets resurrected by memes, flops on first day back in theaters

Image: Sony

Morbius is back in theaters — despite no one even asking for it — and its unpopularity is only making itself more obvious. The film made just $85,000 on Friday after making a return to over 1,000 theaters, bringing its domestic cumulative to $73.6 million (via Forbes).

Morbius was originally released on April 1st and wasn’t the most well-received. In The Verge’s review of the flick, our TV and film reporter, Charles Pulliam-Moore, says Morbius’ pacing, plot, and the performance of its lead actors feel “ill-conceived,” and “calls into question Sony’s grand project of building an entire cinematic universe on Spider-Man’s back.”

Sony likely re-released the movie with the hope that renewed interest in the “it’s morbin’ time” meme would somehow trigger a second larger wave of people who would want to sit through the Spider-Man spinoff. But it turns out that a meme’s popularity doesn’t directly correlate to genuine interest — who could’ve guessed?

In an even more cringey move, Jared Leto — the star of Morbius — just had to get in on the meme, posting a video on Twitter that shows him reading from a fake script titled Morbius 2: It’s Morbin’ Time. Here’s to hoping that Sony is just trolling us all, and isn’t planning on having Dr. Morbius make a cameo in the next Spider-Man with his hip new catchphrase, or, even worse, get a sequel.