Trivia / Morbius (2022)

• Beam Me Up, Scotty!:
  • Despite all the memes, Morbius never actually says "It's Morbin' time" or uses "morb" as a verb (i.e. "Get morbed!", "Stand back, I'm about to morb!"). It's a joke that relies on the assumption that nobody has seen the movie, and therefore, nobody can confirm or deny whether Morbius actually says that. Of course, this hasn't stopped a good number of people from honestly thinking the line is in the film and coming out of a viewing disappointed.
  • A lot of people poked fun at Michael Morbius describing the anticoagulant he uses to kill Milo by saying that "To bats, it's lethal; to humans, it's deadly." However, the actual phrasing in the film is "Deadly to bats, fatal to humans".
• California Doubling: The London Underground stands in for the New York Subway. Also, the New York City scenes were actually filmed in in the Northern Quarter of Manchester, England.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: When the Nostalgia Critic reviewed this film, he claimed the delays for it were to hype it up and make it seem like the "Next Top Gun: Maverick". Whilst both films suffered from Release Date Changes, Morbius ended up in American theaters first on April 1 2022 while Top Gun: Maverick wouldn't come out until over a month later on May 27 2022.
• Creator Backlash: Even Michael Keaton, by his own admission, felt that in retrospect his cameo as Toomes/Vulture in the post-credits scenes in the movie made no sense, remarking that the movie's crew couldn't even seem to give him a rational explanation for why he was there.
• Dawson Casting: Michael is in his mid-to-late thirties. He's played by Jared Leto, who was in his late forties during filming and fifty upon release. Given that Leto famously looks much younger than his age, it's entirely believable.
• Delayed Release Tie-In: Some Marvel comic books released in 2020 advertised the movie with its original release date (July 31, 2020) prior to its delay into 2022.
• Executive Meddling: The mural of Spider-Man in the movie's trailer was added by the studio without director Daniel Espinosa's involvement.
• Fan Community Nicknames: The largely ironic fandom that has sprung up following this movie's release call themselves "Morbheads".
• Flip-Flop of God: Tyrese Gibson stated in an interview that the film was actually part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which was promptly denied by Sony who said they had no idea why he'd say that. It doesn't help that the film's trailer, which had been released over a year earlier, makes a point of featuring Michael Keaton as apparently his MCU character Adrian Toomes. Keaton himself would confirm it was Toomes while also expressing that he himself was confused on how or if it's supposed to be connected. The final movie confirms that it's set in the SSU, with Keaton's Vulture being transported from the MCU to the SSU after Doctor Strange's second spell.
• Meme Acknowledgment:
  • Jared Leto posted a video on Twitter wherein he's "caught" reading a script titled Morbius 2: It's Morbin' Time.
  • An unintentional version: Tyrese Gibson fell for a fake quote from Martin Scorsese^note who previously claimed that superhero movies, specifically the Marvel Cinematic Universe, were not cinema in his eyes but more comparable to theme park rides claiming that the movie changed his perception on comic book movies and that it was true cinema that even he couldn't top.
• Method Acting: Confirmed by director Daniel Espinosa in a Uproxx interview, Jared Leto committed to capturing Michael Morbius' limping state and used crutches even off-camera. This proved at times to be troublesome for the crew when the actor reportedly took 45-minute treks to the bathroom. Pushing him through a wheelchair was a loophole solution around these delays.
• Missing Trailer Scene:
  • Several of the trailer scenes connecting Morbius to other Spider-Man films aren't present in the films, including the mural of Spider-Man. The director has confirmed this was not shot by him and was never going to be in the film. The originally advertised cameo from Adrian Toomes is also missing, with his appearance in The Stinger of the final film being two entirely different scenes, although judging from the flashing police lights and the clothes Toomes is wearing, it seems the original cameo was a part of the first scene before getting cut.
  • Also missing are the scenes where Morbius discusses his condition with his father-figure Nicholas and any hint of Agent Stroud's cybernetic arm, which can briefly be seen in the trailers. The trailers also talk about Morbius being found onboard the cargo ship, the opposite of what happens in the film.
• Release Date Change: Four times over due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. The film initially moved from July 31, 2020, to March 19, 2021, then to October 8, 2021, once more to January 28, 2022, and again to April 1, 2022. Notably, it was initially set to be released before Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Spider-Man: No Way Home, but was released after them, with No Way Home being fully produced during the delay for Morbius. Right before the eventual release date, Sony Pictures took part in an economic boycott of Russia due to the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, resulting in the film being delayed in Russia indefinitely.
• Saved from Development Hell: The film first started with Artisan in 2000 before the rights were transferred to Sony, and the project didn't start until 2018.
• What Could Have Been: See here
• Word of God: Despite never filming the scene with the Spider-Man mural, the director has confirmed that Spider-Man (or at least a Spider-Totem equivalent) does still exist within the SSU.

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