There were previously two notable attempts to adapt the character of Michael Morbius into a cinematic form since 1998, those being a role in the Blade franchise as an antagonist and having a solo film produced by Artisan Entertainment, neither of which ever came to fruition.

Morbius premiered at the Plaza Carso in Mexico City on March 10, 2022 and was theatrically released in the United States on April 1, after being delayed several times from an initial July 2020 date, primarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

At a hospital in Greece, 10-year-old Michael Morbius welcomes his surrogate brother Lucien, whom he renames Milo; they bond over their shared blood illness and desire to be "normal".

His colleague Martine Bancroft discovers he has secretly captured dozens of vampire bats from Costa Rica in the hope of splicing their genes with his own to cure his condition.

[b] Corey Johnson portrays mercenary Mr. Fox,[25] while Michael Keaton makes a cameo appearance in the mid-credits scenes as Adrian Toomes / Vulture, reprising his role from the MCU film Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017).

[32] That November, Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless submitted a script to Sony for a Morbius film, after a "secret development process" at the studio.

[34] In May, while on tour in Germany with his band Thirty Seconds to Mars, Leto met with Espinosa to talk about the film,[34] and the pair were both confirmed for the project at the end of June.

[43] Adria Arjona entered negotiations to portray the film's female lead, Martine Bancroft, in December;[17] her involvement was confirmed a month later when Sony pushed the release date to July 31,[18] and Matt Smith also joined the cast in an undisclosed role.

[67] At the start of January 2022, the film was delayed to April 1, 2022, due to the box office success of Spider-Man: No Way Home which Sony hoped would continue throughout early 2022.

[25] In March, visual effects supervisor Matthew E. Butler revealed that motion capture technology had been used for Leto to portray Michael's vampiric form.

[70] Espinosa cited Pokémon as an influence on the portrayal of Michael's powers, specifically singling out the series's use of light and color to depict the title creatures' attacks and abilities.

[6] In March 2022, Sony used their The Daily Bugle promotional TikTok account, previously used for Spider-Man: No Way Home, to market Morbius; the videos feature Nicque Marina reporting on events relative to the film.

[82] Morbius had its world premiere at the Plaza Carso in Mexico City on March 10, 2022,[83][84] and was released in the United States on April 1, 2022, in IMAX and other premium large formats.

[85] The negative reception toward the film generated an ironic meme culture surrounding it with "praise", which led Sony to re-release it into 1,000 theaters on June 3, 2022.

[109] This decision was also met with criticism from various outlets, which speculated that the release was because Sony was unaware that the Internet trend was not due to legitimate popular admiration towards the film.

The website's critics consensus reads, "Cursed with uninspired effects, rote performances, and a borderline nonsensical story, this dreary mess is a vein [sic] attempt to make Morbius happen.

[122] Reviewing the film for Collider, Emma Kiely felt that the "central problem of Morbius is a lazy and uninspiring script" and added that "no weight or depth is given to any character."

"[123] Barry Hertz of The Globe and Mail panned the film, saying it "is charmless, incoherent, ugly and so aggressively stupid that it defies any attempt to shove it into the desperate 'guilty pleasure' box.

[126] Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film 2 out of 4 stars, saying: "It looks like Morbius might soon cross paths with Spider-Man in one universe or another, but that would be a big step up for him, because his introductory vehicle feels more like a just-average 1990s vampire movie.

[128] Chris Bumbray of JoBlo.com gave the film a 6 out of 10 and called it "a decent enough start for the latest addition to the Sony Spider-Man Universe" while also praising the cinematography and "horror aspects" of the plot.

[129] Leah Greenblatt of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B grade, saying that Leto "hits the right notes of fear and longing in a surprisingly restrained performance".

[131] The Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney said the film "only intermittently matches the intensity" of Leto's performance and wrote: "It's just a shame this opening salvo takes itself too seriously to have much fun with the mayhem, despite the potential in Smith's devilish turn for amusing interplay between the antagonists.

"[133] The post-credits scenes also came under heavy scrutiny and became a joke in the eyes of the general public due to the failed fan service, confusing and incoherent explanation, and dialogue.

[134] Kate Erbland of IndieWire stated, "This is confusing stuff, and the appearance of Keaton in a pair of [mid-credits] scenes does little to help the sense that Morbius is mostly incoherent, or at least very at odds with whatever it's trying to say.

[142] Polygon wrote that the film became "a kind of collective internet hate watch",[143] with fans sharing meme shitposts which ironically praised it.

[c] Following its release, the hashtag #MorbiusSweep, which jokingly claimed Morbius was the most financially and critically successful film of all time, began trending.

[148] Claims included the film becoming the first to sell over a trillion tickets,[149] the first to make over a "morbillion" dollars,[150] receiving an impossible 203% or higher approval rating (and similarly-impossible 142% or higher audience rating) from Rotten Tomatoes,[151] and an edited screenshot of the Wikipedia page covering the highest-grossing films, with Morbius supposedly having earned $352.9 trillion.

[170][171] Following the financial failure of the re-release, a petition was started on Change.org to put the film back in theaters for a third time with the claim that "we were all busy that weekend".

[172] In January 2021, Leto said there was potential for Michael to appear alongside the character Blade in a future project, with Mahershala Ali cast in that role for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

[176] In March 2022, Leto also expressed interest in a future film featuring Michael appearing alongside Venom, portrayed by Tom Hardy.