Morbius Trailer CONFIRMS It's In MCU With Shock Cameo At The End

Jared Leto's tortured bloodsucker is now part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe?!?!

Morbius Spider-Man Vulture
Sony Pictures

Not only is the first trailer here for Sony’s Jared Leto-headlined Morbius, and not only does the movie look surprisingly good, but this first footage has dropped a major bombshell by confirming that the film will exist within the confines of the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe.

In this teaser trailer, audiences are given their first glance at Leto’s Michael Morbius – a genius doctor whose own blood condition results in him seeking a rather alternative solution which leaves him with an unquenchable bloodlust.

After impressing and setting the tone nicely for what Morbius is all about, this trailer then has the shock reveal of Michael Keaton’s Adrian Toomes turning up during its final few seconds. And not just that, but the trailer also features some graffiti labelling Spider-Man a murderer.

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Of course, Keaton famously played Toomes, aka the nefarious Vulture, opposite Tom Holland’s Wall-crawler in Spider-Man: Homecoming. So, if Michael Morbius exists within the same world as Adrian Toomes, that means the vampiric soul also exists within the same world as Holland’s Spidey, which in turn means that Morbius exists within the MCU.

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Up until now, Sony Pictures’ shared Spider-Verse of movies – which began life with Tom Hardy’s Venom – were being developed as existing in a completely separate universe to Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Sony and its Columbia Pictures banner have long held the cinematic rights to Spider-Man and his cast of supporting characters, and ol’ Web-head has only been able to appear in the MCU due to an agreement that was hashed out between Sony and the House of Mouse. Last year famously saw the two companies butting heads to the point that Sony was pulling Spider-Man out of the MCU due to Disney demanding too large of a cut of any Spider-flicks profit.

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When all was said and done, Sony and Disney managed to work out a new deal for Holland’s Peter Parker to continue to be a key part of the MCU – and seemingly any such deal saw the two parties agree that Sony’s Spider-Verse would be dovetailed into the MCU, with Michael Keaton’s Vulture acting as the conduit for that.

Going forward, this opens up a whole host of possibilities for so many characters associated with Spider-Man.

In addition to Morbius hitting the silver screen on July 31st and Venom 2 on the way this October, Sony has solo movies in various stages of development for Black Cat, Silver Sable, Kraven the Hunter, Nightwatch, Jackpot, Silk, Madame Web, and the strong likelihood of some variation on the Sinister Six team of rogues coming together down the line.

With the MCU door now being opened for these characters, exciting times could well be ahead as the MCU continues to expand yet again - this coming on the back of Disney's assimilation of 20th Century Fox seeing the company also nab the rights to the X-Men and Fantastic Four.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.