“Morbius” director Daniel Espinosa knew there was a lot to sink his teeth into as he made a movie about Marvel’s living vampire.
The Swedish filmmaker was 8 years old when he began reading comic books featuring Morbius, and watched the complicated character evolve from a small part of the superhero stories to something much more complex.
His new movie brings the character’s dark origin story to the big screen, with Oscar-winning actor Jared Leto suiting up as Morbius.
“I thought it would be fun to do this outsider kind of a superhero and antihero that exists in the borderlines of the Marvel universe,” Espinosa told the Daily News.
“My movie was a bit of a darker version of Marvel, but has a bit of trippiness in it.”
Now playing in theaters, the film introduces Leto’s Dr. Michael Morbius as a renowned scientist who suffers from a deadly blood disease and dedicated his life to finding a cure.
He believes using the DNA of vampire bats could be the key to solving the illness and creates an experimental serum that he uses on himself, giving him superhuman strength and speed — along with an insatiable hunger for blood.
“It gives him these awesome powers but it also changes him, and there are sides of him that come out that are much more violent and that are very negative and abusive,” Espinosa, 45, said.
“He has to deal with if that’s his new self, and if this good person he’s been before, is that all bulls--- or is there a way to kind of meld those two ideas?”
The Morbius character debuted in the Marvel comic books in 1971 as an adversary of the web-slinging superhero Spider-Man, but later transitioned into more of an antihero.
“Michael Morbius, the private person, is regarded within the Marvel community as one of the most altruistic characters of that world,” Espinosa said. “He works solely to help other people.”
He believes using the DNA of vampire bats could be the key to solving the illness and creates an experimental serum that he uses on himself, giving him superhuman strength and speed — along with an insatiable hunger for blood.
“It gives him these awesome powers but it also changes him, and there are sides of him that come out that are much more violent and that are very negative and abusive,” Espinosa, 45, said.
“He has to deal with if that’s his new self, and if this good person he’s been before, is that all bulls — or is there a way to kind of meld those two ideas?”
The Morbius character debuted in the Marvel comic books in 1971 as an adversary of the web-slinging superhero Spider-Man, but later transitioned into more of an antihero.
“Michael Morbius, the private person, is regarded within the Marvel community as one of the most altruistic characters of that world,” Espinosa said. “He works solely to help other people.”
Leto’s dedication was on full display when he shot a particularly intense scene in which his character tries to resist an overwhelming urge for blood, Espinosa said.
“He just really went for it in there, and you could just see that the whole crew grew silent and stood up,” Epinosa said. “People got ready to run into the room as soon as I called ‘cut’ to see that he wasn’t hurt. I could feel that they grew in the strength, and they were like, OK, this guy is ready to fight for us. We’ll fight for him.”
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