HEREDITARY Director Ari Aster Turned Down Sony's Marvel Flop MORBIUS
Ari Aster, the filmmaker behind the super dark horror films Hereditary and Midsommar, could have added one of Marvel’s most notorious flops to his résumé: Morbius.
“I feel like I shouldn't say. Should I?... I was asked to do... is it Mobius? Morbius?” Aster revealed during the Mixed Signals podcast from Semafor Media.
Morbius… Sony’s ill-fated Marvel spinoff starring Jared Leto as the living vampire. The film bombed spectacularly at the box office, earning just $167.5 million globally and a mere 15% on Rotten Tomatoes. It even got a second theatrical run thanks to meme culture, but the re-release made only $280,000.
Hearing that Aster was once in the mix raises a fascinating question: What would Morbius have looked like through his lens? Aster’s unnerving, slow-burn style could have transformed the film into something truly interesting and extremely unsettling. Imagine the existential dread of the films he makes fused with the gothic body horror of a vampire origin story. Instead, we got… whatever that was.
Even Jared Harris, who starred in Morbius, admitted last year that money sometimes drives these decisions:
“I have got a mortgage to pay, you know. Sometimes you say yes to things because you need to make money.”
Aster clearly didn’t feel the same pressure. Instead of joining Sony’s Spider-Man spinoff universe, he’s continued crafting the kind of wild and unique, auteur-driven films that cemented his reputation.
His latest movie, Eddington, is out now and it comes with a stacked cast featuring Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, and Austin Butler.
Would Ari Aster have delivered a great Morbius film? We’ll never know, but the thought of a grim, folk-horror-inspired Marvel vampire is one hell of a “what if.”