Avi Arad Talks MORBIUS THE LIVING VAMPIRE and Don't Expect The Movie To Be Rated R
With Venom being a box office success, Sony Pictures thinks they made a great movie and now they are going to move forward with their plans of building out their own Spider-Man-less Marvel cinematic universe. The next film on the pipeline is Morbius The Living Vampire which will star Jared Leto.
In a recent interview with Collider, Sony producers Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach revealed details on the next villain they plan to bring to the big screen and if you were hoping for an R-rating, it doesn’t sound like that’s the direction they are going.
When talking about getting Leto on board to star in the film, Arad said:
“Oh yeah. This is the great thing for us now, that an actor like him, and an actor like Tom [Hardy] wanted to have their own character. But the character they love. Both of them, very hard to get them to do a movie. You actually cannot get them. We went in, we sat with them, and everybody told us, “Oh, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba.” Nothing. That’s what he wanted to do.”
Arad went on to explain how he wants to take his grandkids to see these movies, so it seems like an R-rating isn’t likely:
“Again, what I said to you before, it depends on the story. If the success of the story depends on being R-rated…
But at least for me, I have grandkids, kids, whatever, all these things, and some of these movies, they’re dying to see. You know? As I took my grandson, seven, to the recording session of Venom. And he had the time of his life.”
Tolmach agreed and went on to say:
“I don’t think there’s a rule written somewhere in stone that all of them have to be one thing, alright? I think what Avi’s saying is right. I think we’ve all talked about, ‘Well, if one of these presents itself in a way…’ Look, we have all seen, as you’ve said, the R-rated versions of these movies now working. So, that’s out there. You can succeed to a staggering degree.”
Then Arad used Venom as an example of a character that wasn’t compromised by a PG-13 rating:
“We didn’t compromise anywhere. You saw the movies. There is no compromise. That was Venom … You know what? When you hear Venom… forget Venom. When you hear, Carnage, the only thing you can think of is R. But, if you know his story, if you really know the comic, there’s no R here. He’s a tortured soul. It’s not about what he does, because we never have to show the knife going from here to there, and the blood is pouring. What you have to show is, what is the motivation? Was he born like that, or it’s someone we should feel for, because if you are succeeding to make a villain someone you can feel for, jackpot.”
I get what he’s saying, but I have to say that the Venom film that was released didn’t feel like Venom to me. I know a lot of people that liked the movie, which is great. I just didn’t care for how the character was portrayed. The character just doesn’t work without Spider-Man.
Anyway, Morbius The Living Vampire is said to be aiming for a February 2019 start date and I’m expecting it to be PG-13. I think Morbius is definitely an R-rated character, though! I mean… just look at that comic art above!
Morbius a.k.a. Dr. Michael Morbius, is "a scientist who suffered from a rare blood disease and attempted to cure himself to disastrous results. Instead of being cured, he became afflicted with a condition that was a form of vampirism — the thirst for blood, along with fangs and super strength — and fought Spider-Man. Over time, however, he became a slightly heroic figure in his own right and even headlined his own comic book titles."
The movie has been described as a horror action story that will follow Morbius who is disgusted by his own bloodlust, so he chooses to prey upon criminals he deems unworthy of life." So, it will be like a vampire version of Dexter.
The movie will be directed by Daniel Espinosa (Life, Safe House) from a script by Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama (Netflix’s Lost in Space).
Are you excited for the Morbius movie? Will Sony turn Morbius into the Twilight of the Marvel universe?