Venom & Morbius Officially Set In The MCU: What This Means

Sony Pictures Entertainment's Morbius has released its first trailer, and it connects the film - and Venom - to the Marvel Cinematic Universe through Spider-Man and Vulture. After Tom Hardy's successful Venom, Sony is moving forward with their spin-off franchise with the film directed by Daniel Espinosa and starring Jared Leto as Dr. Michael Morbius - a scientist who suffers from a rare blood disease who accidentally afflicts himself with vampirirsm. Narrative specifics are still scant at the moment, but regardless of what's going down in the film, it appears that reports about it taking place in the same reality as the MCU were accurate.

Since Sony's own interconnected film universe started taking shape, there has been confusion as to how it'll relate to the MCU, primarily due to the studio's current deal with Marvel Studios regarding sharing the rights for Tom Holland's web-slinging-hero. It didn't help that Kevin Feige and former Sony executive/film producer Amy Pascal had conflicting statements about the matter. Going into Venom, there were rampant rumors that Holland's Spider-Man would make a cameo, which obviously didn't happen. Despite that, people involved in the project continuously said that their meet-up was inevitable, implying that the budding franchise would eventually interlink with the MCU. Based on the trailer, it doesn't seem like fans will have to wait for Venom 2 for a clear MCU connection, as it instead comes via Morbius.

The first trailer for Morbius is now out and it features two major connections to the MCU's Spider-Man. In one frame from the promotional clip, Morbius walks through an alleyway of graffiti-covered walls - one of which features an image of the friendly neighborhood hero but with an overlay of the word "murderer." Then, at the very end of the Morbius trailer, Michael Keaton's Adrian Toomes aka Vulture appears, talking to Morbius about him no longer being a good guy. If the first didn't make it clear, the second does; Morbius exists within the MCU.

The additional text on top of graffiti is seemingly a reference to what happened in Spider-Man: Far From Home's mid-credits scene. There, Peter was framed for the death of Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) after J.K. Simmons' J. Jonah Jameson's Daily Bugle online site got ahold of the heavily manipulated footage that's meant to make Spider-Man look like the bad guy. Coincidentally, previous reports suggested that the connecting tissue between Morbius and the MCU is the appearance of Jameson in the upcoming film, which seems to be more plausible given this trailer image. What's interesting, however, is that the graffiti seemed to use an image of the hero from Sam Raimi's trilogy as it appeared in Spider-Man PlayStation 4 video game from 2018.

Even bigger is the surprise appearance of Keaton's Vulture. That not only provides a firmer link, but suggests that the deal is going even further: not only is it for this movie, but the putting together of Morbius and Vulture suggests that Marvel and Sony are very much building towards a Sinister Six team-up. That's something Sony has been looking to make for a long time, and the MCU Spider-Man movies have already setup the Sinister Six too. The Morbius trailer makes that even more overt. Of course, there's no official word from Kevin Feige yet, so it's still a little unclear how much the rest of the MCU will be affected, or if the Spider-Man aspects will sit a little separate. It's also worth noting that just because they exist in the same reality, that doesn't mean that the established franchise will be forced to acknowledge the events of the villain-centric film series beyond Spider-Man 3. After all, they were able to pretty much ignore whatever went down with the now defunct Marvel TV counterpart even though they're set in the universe. Nonetheless, this could at least be effective setup for the planned Blade movie if nothing else.

With the connection between the Sony Spider-Man villain universe and MCU confirmed through Morbius, it's curious what this means for the future of Sony and Marvel Studios' deal to share the rights of the web-slinging hero. Last year, Sony was on the verge of pulling Spider-Man out of the MCU after they were unable to agree on new terms following their initial deal. They ultimately found a middle ground (and it seems explicitly linking the franchises was one of the new stipulations added), resulting in the iconic Marvel hero staying in the MCU with two more films in the pipeline (one solo film and ensemble project). It's unclear what would happen after that, but if they move forward with a split, it'll be more significantly difficult to do with established ties between the two franchises.

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