Jared Leto To Star In Morbius The Living Vampire Film

 

Jared Leto is looking to add a Marvel Comics character to his portfolio of acting roles.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Leto will star in Sony’s adaptation of Morbius the Living Vampire. The victim of a rare blood disorder, Dr. Micheal Morbius’s research into his condition inadvertently gave him vampire-like powers and a craving for hemoglobin. Never finding a cure, he eventually found himself part of Marvel’s supernatural roster. Created in 1971 by writer Roy Thomas and artist Gil Kane, the character was designed as a tragic and sympathetic antagonist for the Webhead — a recurring feature of Spider-Man comics — in his initial story and would go on to appear in a number of other titles before finally getting a book of his own in 1992.
Life director Daniel Espinosa will direct from a script by Lost in Space‘s Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama.
The film will, of course, be another branch of Sony’s seemingly Spider-Man-less Spiderverse. Morbius certainly has enough story hooks to generate an interesting film without the presence of Spider-Man as his opponent. Or, at least, it’s easier to excise Peter Parker from the proceedings than in Sony’s upcoming Venom. Nonetheless, Venom is due out in October. It will be the first in Sony’s ambitious plan to exploit their Spider-Man library while the lead character spends time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Besides Venom and Morbius, the studio is also developing Black and Silver, based on Spider-Man allies Black Cat and Silver Sable; though the film recently lost its release date.
Leto, of course, already has a DC Entertainment role as the current manifestation of the Joker; a role he is expected to reprise in the upcoming Suicide Squad 2 and his own solo Joker film.