Morbius Flops At Box Office Again - Memes Can't Save Marvel Movie

Sony's re-release of Morbius in response to a surge of internet memes around the Marvel title resulted in the movie once again flopping.

Morbius Flops At Box Office Again – Memes Can't Save Marvel Movie

Morbius flops again at the box office after internet memes prompted Sony to re-release the film. The wild success of Venom and its sequel prompted Sony to continue building out its Spider-Man Universe with more titles. Unfortunately 2022’s Morbius came nowhere near doing Venom numbers, grossing just $163 million worldwide.

Morbius of course was originally supposed to come out way back in 2020 but COVID ended up delaying its release for two years. When it finally did arrive, the movie was met with brutal reviews from critics and currently holds just a 17% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Arguably the only place where Morbius has succeeded is in the arena of internet memes, thanks to a cascade of clever jokes riffing on the bomb Marvel film. One particular internet meme, a Power Rangers-inspired parody called “Morbin’ Time,” even caught the eye of star Jared Leto who responded with his own joke video. Sony also responded to the Morbius meme action by announcing a re-release of the flop movie in theaters.

Unfortunately there’s a big difference between people wanting to make fun of a movie on the internet and folks actually wanting to get back out and see that movie in the theater. Sony indeed learned this lesson over the weekend, as their Morbius re-release grossed just $300,000 on 1,037 screens (via Forbes). The tally placed the film far behind box office winner Top Gun: Maverick, which took in $86 million in its second weekend.

Indeed it’s hard to say exactly what Sony was expecting to accomplish by putting Morbius back into theaters for a second go-around. Perhaps they were hoping to look like good sports by reacting to fans’ memes in a fun manner. Or maybe they actually believed that meme-related hype would somehow translate into box office action for a movie that flopped the first time and is already available at home. In the end, all they really did accomplish was to remind people that Morbius isn’t very good and was a total flop in theaters.

But of course Morbius’ flop likely won’t change Sony’s plans for continuing to build out their Spider-Man Cinematic universe. Indeed Morbius itself sets up a supposed Sinister Six movie, with Michael Keaton’s Vulture showing up for not one but two confusing mid-credits sequences. And then there’s Kraven the Hunter, another likely Sinister Six set-up movie headed for release in 2023. A movie of Madame Web is also reportedly going forward with Dakota Johnson in the lead role. Venom 3 also seems like an inevitability at this point. What doesn’t seem likely is an actual Morbius 2, even if Leto is keen to make a sequel happen. Hopefully Morbius’ second flop box office performance will convince Sony that Leto’s character doesn’t have enough of a following to carry his own movies. Morbius could however presumably work in a team-up setting along with Vulture, Kraven, Venom and other Spider-Man characters to be named later.