Posted in: Movies, Sony | Tagged: morbius, movies, sony

Jared Leto Went Super Method For Morbius [But Didn't Drink Blood]

Kidding [mostly]. for his movies and just harassing people. There was an ongoing rumor that he sent Margot Robbie a dead rat while they were costars in Suicide Squad back in 2016, but that turned out not to be true; the rat was alive. So when it was announced that Leto would be taking on the role of Michael Morbius, better known as Morbius, the Living Vampire from Marvel Comics, there was always the chance that he was going to get super meta on set. He didn't actually drink blood, which is good to hear, but he did get rather intense. Variety did a long-form interview with Leto, and he spoke about the preparation he did to play Morbius and how the character suffers from a rare blood disorder. He spoke to patients and doctors to help him get into the mindset, which is fairly by the books, but Leto went above and beyond for the fact that Morbius walks with a cane.

"But for me," he says, "it's an opportunity to learn. … I don't want to get too specific because I'd like to keep some of that for myself," he says. "But I leaned in — no pun unintended. I'm a sucker for a pun, but I didn't mean that. I worked with people who had this specific physical challenge and modeled it after that."

His Morbius costar Adria Arjona explained that the way Leto was walking on set with the cane even when the cameras weren't running concerned her.

"I remember fearing for this guy's spine," she says with a laugh. "There should have been a physical therapist on call."

Jared, you don't want to mess with your back; once you screw that thing up, there's no going back; same with the knees. Morbius director Daniel Espinosa spoke of two different times that Leto got so intense that it caused a visceral reaction from the crew. One such sequence is when Morbius locks himself in a room full of blood to try and resist the temptation.

"I got scared for Jared," Espinosa says. "He really commits. You have to watch out for it." In another scene involving Morbius shattering glass, "I could sense the crew backed off," Espinosa recalls. "It was a bit spooky."

The mere fact that we called it "method" in the headline for this piece would be an insult to Leto, who prefers the term "immersive acting." A self-diagnosed "movie snob," when it came to headlining his own comic book movie, it was how different Morbius was from other characters that really drew him in and that focus on transformation, which he has said a few times in the marketing leading up to the release of this movie.

"I loved that it was the very first time this character was going to be on screen," Leto says. "I've always been interested in transformation, and this was a way to explore that territory in a big Marvel film. It was impossible to say no."

There have been plenty of delays trying to get Morbius to the big screen, and thus far, there has been a massive bomb when it comes to a comic book movie yet. It's still up in the air whether or not Morbius will find an audience, but with a modest $75 million budget plus a few false starts with marketing, the number to shoot for is likely around $115 million. Leto seems to have a pretty good attitude about whether or not the movie will find an audience.

"If it doesn't work out, we have a good excuse," Leto says with a grin over a lengthy Zoom conversation. "We waited too long."

He's not wrong. Most people haven't heard of this character before, so Morbius is likely going to live and die by word of mouth, so that first weekend is going to define whether or not this movie ultimately succeeds.

Summary: One of the most compelling and conflicted characters in Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters comes to the big screen as Oscar® winner Jared Leto transforms into the enigmatic antihero Michael Morbius. Dangerously ill with a rare blood disorder and determined to save others suffering his same fate, Dr. Morbius attempts a desperate gamble. While at first, it seems to be a radical success, a darkness inside him is unleashed. Will good override evil – or will Morbius succumb to his mysterious new urges?

Morbius, directed by Daniel Espinosa, stars Jared Leto, Matt Smith, Adria Arjona, Jared Harris, Al Madrigal, and Tyrese Gibson. It will be released on April 1, 2022.

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