The Spider-Man superhero movies have an interesting history. Although almost every blockbuster now belongs to Marvel’s superheroes, comic book publishing looked very different in the 1990s. Because Marvel was very close to bankruptcy and had to sell licenses for some of its most popular heroes. The X-Men and Fantastic Four went to Fox, while Sony grabbed Spider-Man. Fox, like Marvel itself, is now owned by Disney. Sony still owns the rights to Spider-Man. In fact, Sony is also largely responsible for today’s wave of superhero films, because the “Spider-Man” trilogy of the early 2000s, together with the first “X-Men”, showed that Marvel’s superheroes are also suitable for adult entertainment.
Spider-Man without Spider-Man
Meanwhile, Spider-Man himself has found his way back into the Marvel Cinematic Universe – thanks to a deal between Sony and Disney that allows a crossover between the two worlds. However, there is a catch: Neither company can use Spider-Man without the consent of both parties. That’s why Sony’s own studio is responsible for both “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and the spider-less “Venom”. After it became clear with “Spider-Man: Homecoming” that Marvel simply made better films than the unpopular “The Amazing Spider-Man 2”, Sony tried to differentiate itself more, but without abandoning the superhero trend. In 2018 “Venom” was released. The eponymous protagonist is actually a villain and the counterpart to Spider-Man, but the friendly neighborhood spider was nowhere to be seen in the film. Instead, Sony tried to appeal to a more mature audience by keeping the film a bit darker and more violent, but without going directly down the “Deadpool” route. Despite moderate specialist reviews, “Venom” was a hit with the public and promptly received a successor in 2021, which, however, did not manage to continue the success.
The protagonist from Sony’s latest film “Morbius” is actually an antagonist from the “Spider-Man” comics. The scientist Michael Morbius suffers from a rare blood-borne disease and his life is severely restricted. With the help of bat DNA, however, he manages to find a cure, only that it turns him into a kind of vampire and he has to drink human blood from now on. When the cure then also gets to his childhood friend who was also ill, there is a showdown between the two vampires. That doesn’t just sound like a cliché, this film actually adheres so strictly to well-known superhero patterns that one could easily mistake it for a parody. A critique is hardly useful at this point since the film had been in theaters for quite some time and was completely lost. With a horrific 17% on the Rotten Tomatoes rating platform and empty theaters, everyone agrees: “Morbius” is utter crap.
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