Morbius Delayed Until April 2022 – 6th Time Sony Pushed Back Release

Covid movie delays suck, and we’ve been dealing with them for a while. One movie in particular we’ve been waiting to see since halfway through 2020, and it looks like that will happen later than expected, again. Morbius is delayed until April 2022, but if that sounds familiar, it’s because this movie has been delayed six times now! Sony had pushed Morbius back 6 times, now with a release date of April 1st instead of January 28th. 

Put Off for the Mostly the Same Reason

Remember back in July 2020? Everything was terrible, nobody knew what was going on, and pretty much every movie was being pushed back due to safety concerns. That’s when Morbius was pushed back for the first time, from July 10th to July 31st. Safety was a huge concern then, and there wasn’t that much information on Covid. We were all tentatively excited to see Leto bring Morbius to some kind of life. Say what you will about Leto’s version of Joker (strange gifts included), his music, or his dedication to method acting, but if you need someone who seems genuinely unnerving to play your living vampire, he’s the guy. He had the look down almost perfectly in every single 30 Seconds to Mars music video. 

Image via Universal Interscope Virgin EMI Immortal

The July 31st date didn’t happen. The release plan for Morbius is a perfect mirror of the escalation of events from the last 2 years. From the 31st, Sony pushed the release date back all the way to March 19, 2021. They weren’t taking any chances. This thing was going to release, and it was going to come out, and it was going to be amazing, and things would definitely be better. 

After things didn’t get much better, Morbius was pushed back another 7 months to October 8th. Things were looking better, and it was looking like we’d be able to see if Michael Keaton is actually making an appearance as The Vulture. And even if it got delayed, big releases were being released on streaming platforms, so it would make sense for blood-starved Jared Leto to be making his sanguine debut on the small screen. 

The October release date didn’t happen, but this time the delay was much shorter. Morbius was set for a theatrical release on January 21st of this year. Only a few weeks away, the hype was building again. If you hadn’t seen the trailer, it was time to check it out, especially now that all the No Way Home and other connections to the MCU Spider-Verse were clear. And if you didn’t have time to pick out the Venom references or the Garfield Spider-Man easter eggs in the trailer, the delay to January 28th would give you some extra room. That made 5. 

Image via Sony

Hopefully the Last Delay

Morbius is delayed until April 2022, after 6 release dates, this will hopefully be the last one. However, there’s a possible difference between this delay and the others. Throughout the planned release cycle, Sony wasn’t going to have much competition. Other movies were getting pushed back left and right, so it was clear flying for them. This time, however, they’d have had a movie offset by two years in competition with No Way Home, a movie that has made Sony approximately every dollar available (over $1 billion now). 

It’s not likely that Sony is going to keep dropping No Way Home-level movies, so the way should eb relatively clear for the April 2022 release date. And it’s a few months out, so we have time to review why we should still be pumped that we’re getting this movie at all. Morbius as a character sits between worlds. For most of his life, he’s dying. That drives him to try to find a cure and ultimately turn himself into a living vampire, caught between vampirism and his humanity. Morbius walks the line between hero and villain, demonstrating incredible brutality and humanity, often within seconds of each other. 

Image via Sony

Gray area heroes and villains are one of the major themes the MCU’s Phase 4 has been about. Wanda is a traumatized survivor, but she also tortured an entire town. Bucky killed legions while under Hydra conditioning, but now he’s trying to make amends. Even Spider-Man had to confront his own strength and how he should never lean into the brutality his emotions could lead him to. And Morbius, who is basically one of the vampire lords from Skyrim, is not quite a villain, not quite a hero. 

We’ve had literal years longer to wait than anticipated, but this is still a movie that should be worth waiting for. We’re holding out hope that there won’t be a seventh delay because we really want to be excited about this movie. The trailer looks awesome. The source material is great. There’s references to one of the best MCU movies in years, and so far we haven’t heard anything about Jared Leto sending Matt Smith and Adria Arjona bats in cages or blood bags. That’s promising! As long as Morbius isn’t delayed after April 2022, we got a lot to look forward to!

The trailer is below if you need to check it out again!

After Being Pushed Back 6 times, Morbius will premiere in April 2022.

Are you still excited to see Morbius in theaters? Tell us about it in the comments or just reminisce about who you were when it was originally supposed to premiere.

Featured image via Sony

Jessica Kanzler is a freelance writer and editor who lives with her wife and cats. Jessica has bad taste in tv and an MA in Rhetoric, Writing, and Digital Media studies. Talk to her about Frasier on Twitter @Jessicaakanzler