‘Morbius’ Tops $100 Million Worldwide As ‘Uncharted’ Passes ‘Eternals’ Overseas

Sony has announced a few arbitrary milestones for its most recent releases. To wit, Morbius, which was surely the worst-received “big” comic book superhero movie since Fantastic Four, has at least passed $100 million worldwide as of today. The $75 million Jared Leto/Matt Smith vampire melodrama opened with $39 million in its domestic debut and $84 million globally. It has thus far earned $45 million domestic and $102 million worldwide. I’m expecting a pretty huge second-weekend drop.

For reference, the biggest remains the 78% drop for Shaquille O’Neal’s Steel in 1997 ($191,667 from $870,068) while Dark Phoenix dropped 71% from a $33 million debut in 2019. There are around a dozen such films (Batman v Superman, Hulk, Wolverine, etc.) that fell between 67% and 71% in weekend two. We’ll see where Morbius sits alongside the seemingly strong opening of Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

That Morbius opened *after* Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Spider-Man: No Way Home means its artistic failure (and, barring a miracle, one-and-done status in terms of a solo franchise) is less of an issue for Sony’s Marvel plans. We may never get Morbius 2, but they can still use Jared Leto’s Dr. Michael Morbius as one of their eventual Sinister Six team if and when the time comes.

However, this just means Aaron Johnson’s Kraven the Hunter needs to deliver next January. While audiences wanted a Venom movie and were fine with a Morbius movie, the challenge with Kraven is that fans only really wanted him specifically as a Spider-Man baddie. Delivering an anti-hero origin story and promising to let him kick Peter Parker’s ass down the line might not cut it.

In good news for slightly better Sony flicks, Uncharted has now earned $237.3 million outside of North America, giving it a bigger overseas gross than Eternals. Eternals still rules worldwide, with $400 million, but Uncharted’s $378 million cume is days away from the $380 million cume of Marvel’s (concurrently offered on Disney+ Premier Access) Black Widow.

The Tom Holland/Mark Wahlberg flick has also earned $140.3 million domestic, meaning it may just crawl past Detective Pikachu ($144 million) and Sonic the Hedgehog ($148 million, counting Covid-era earnings in what theaters were open in summer 2020) to become the biggest (sans-inflation) video game movie ever in North America. Of course, if Sonic the Hedgehog 2 does what we’re all expecting it to do, well, at least 2022 can boast two well-liked and well-received video game movies.