Hollywood is still leery about the coronavirus pandemic keeping people from theaters, despite vaccines rolling out.
There are rumors that Marvel might be pushing back Black Widow from its May release date, and now Sony has made the first move.
Morbius’ release date has been pushed back to 2022.
Marvel’s Morbius pushed back
Sony has pushed Morbius back to 2022 after announcing its October release date.
It was just 11 days ago that Sony announced Morbius would hit theaters on October 8, 2021. This was perfect timing, as the Sony Marvel movie is as much a horror film as it is a superhero movie.
However, things have now changed.
Deadline reports that Morbius has been moved to January 21, 2022.
Normally, that means bad things for movies, as January is a dumping ground for movies that studios have no faith in. However, with the COVID-19 pandemic wrecking Hollywood, it might just be a way to spread things out better.
The reason for the move to January was because Sony does not believe the vaccines will be out soon enough to save the summer movie season. As a result, Sony moved the next James Bond movie, No Time to Die, to October 8.
That meant that Morbius had to move to make way for the bigger blockbuster.
The good news is that Morbius will get a boost with the January 21 release date. There is no other major wide-release movie scheduled for that weekend, meaning that Morbius will get every IMAX screen exclusively for its release weekend.
Sony’s Marvel movies
This also means that Morbius will come out after Spider-Man 3, which is getting a December 2021 release.
This likely indicates that Morbius will not tie directly into the next Spider-Man movie co-produced by Marvel and Sony.
The trailers showed Michael Keaton, and most fans believe he is playing Vulture, same as he did in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Spider-Man 3 is supposed to feature several past heroes and villains from the various Spider-Man movies.
However, Venom: Let There Be Carnage is still coming out on June 25, 2021, at this time, so that will be the only Sony marvel movie to hit this year before the next Spider-Man film.
Sony has other Spider-Man universe films in development separate from Marvel. They will all get delayed until Sony can see what the Venom sequel and Morbius movie can do at the box office.
These include Nightwatch, Kraven the Hunter, The Sinister Six, Madame Web, and an untitled Olivia Wilde project that might end up being Spider-Woman.