‘Morbius’ Nabs Not Quite Marvelous $39 Million Debut

“That was the worst end credits scene ever! Did he forget about the movie he was just in?” _{– My son, age ten, in the middle of a Lewis Black-level comic meltdown over Morbius’ terrible mid-credit scenes}

A $39.1 million domestic and $84 million worldwide debut for Sony’s Morbius, complete with miserable reviews (16% and 3.8/10 on Rotten Tomatoes) and poor viewer reception (a C+ from Cinemascore) may be less “a franchise born” than “a bullet dodged.” Conventional wisdom suggests that the film will play like Fantastic Four ($56 million from a $26 million debut), Dark Phoenix ($66 million/$33 million) and Batman v Superman ($330/$166 million) and thus end up with an over/under $85 million domestic finish.

Maybe I’m wrong and Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog 2 skews young while Warner Bros.’ Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore plays “for fans only.” Jared Leto’s Morbius does have the advantage of being a user-friendly, no homework-required, 105-minute all-quadrants franchise/superhero flick. The best case scenario is that it becomes a second choice/consensus pick over the next month with a multiplier akin to Suicide Squad ($325 million/$133 million after a 67% second-weekend drop). That still puts Morbius at around $98 million domestic.

It’s still another case of a film that opened better now than it would have in pre-Covid circumstances. Whether moving Morbius from January 29 to April 1 did damage to the film in terms of pushing it farther from Spider-Man: No Way Home, it helped Sony’s Tom Holland/Mark Wahlberg vehicle Uncharted. Morbius still benefited from goodwill for Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Spider-Man 3 version 2.0. Morbius was supposed to open in July of 2020 before both of those well-liked crowd-pleasers.

And yes, Morbius did open 53% better than Fantastic Four. Moreover, that Morbius turned out to be about as bad as we all feared is less of a sting after the mostly enjoyable Venom 2 and the $1.88 billion-grossing Spider-Man: No Way Home. Of course, now there’s pressure on Aaron Johnson’s Kraven The Hunter to show that Venom wasn’t a fluke. Most of the reasons Morbius opened with half of what Venom pulled in October 2018 are the reasons it would have always done so even on a non-Covid timeline.

In terms of commercial appeal and likeability, Morbius < Venom and Jared Leto < Tom Hardy. Venom earned, not counting China ($269 million) $213.5 million domestic and $587 million worldwide on a $90 million budget. A similar split for Morbius on an $85-$90 million domestic total would give it a $235-$250 million global finish. The “good” news is that Morbius only cost $75 million to produce. While the film sometimes feels cheaper in a way that, say, Ghostbusters: Afterlife did not, the film is another example of Tom Rothman’s “blockbusters on a budget.”

These recent $75-$120 million tentpoles (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Uncharted, Venom, etc.) don’t require record-breaking grosses (or big bucks in China) to cross into profitability. It doesn’t mean audiences demand Morbius 2. History shows that even a better sequel will pay for the sins of this one (a phenomenon I like to call the “Tomb Raider Trap”). It does mean that Sony can probably feel confident that there’s an audience for these “Spider-Man villain origin story” flicks.

Chris Pine gave an interview noting that, as we’ve said for years, Star Trek movies should be cheaper, smaller-scale sci-fi adventures that don’t require top-tier box office. He reportedly turned down a pay cut for Star Trek 4 back in 2018 and his second thoughts may be due to an even harsher playing field for a would-be movie star known for a specific marquee character. The Contractor was supposed to be a wide theatrical release until STX sold the domestic distribution rights to Paramount. The old-school actioner, about a former military man who is double-crossed by his private contractor bosses, earned a mere $550,000 opening weekend in 489 theaters. It is concurrently available on PVOD.

Focus Features released Goran Stolevski’s You Won’t Be Alone into limited release this weekend. Focus Features released the acclaimed (93% fresh and 7.6/10 on Rotten Tomatoes) Noomi Rapace-led supernatural chiller, about a young witch who kills a peasant and takes her identity to experience life as a “normal” human being, into 147 theaters. It earned $125,000 over the weekend for an $816 per-theater average. That’s a non-starter, and I’d argue the theatrical release is a glorified marketing campaign for its PVOD debut in a few weeks. That’s not a criticism, as it may be “the new normal” for small-scale films.