Anna Daniels
Additional leaks suggesting the first trailer for Morbius was imminent arrived just a day after this picture surfaced online. The photo emerged on Saturday, January 11 — and on Sunday, January 12, Tyrese Gibson, who portrays FBI Agent Simon Stroud in the movie, confirmed on his Instagram account that the Morbius trailer will arrive on Monday, January 13. (The Oscar nominations will be announced the same day at 5 AM PST, so perhaps it’ll drop after that hubbub has died down.)
This lends some credibility to the authenticity of the mysterious photo. There’s no point in Sony getting upset about a leak if its legitimacy will be almost immediately proven or disproven. Plus, there’s long existed the argument that some story and image leaks across the superhero film genre may be intentional for marketing purposes.
In Morbius’ case, the waters are muddied even further because this is by no means a guaranteed money-maker for Sony’s Marvel movie franchise. The Living Vampire is a niche character even by die-hard comics fan standards, and in a lot of ways, Morbius is second fiddle to several other spooky personalities. There’s effort to be made to sell any potential audience on this particular movie — at least Venom has, you know, a measurable amount of pre-established fans. This is the golden hour in which to begin marketing a movie for the summer (it opens in theaters on July 31) that might need an extra bit of juice for gaining interest momentum — especially for a month in which a Christopher Nolan film, the long-anticipated Bob’s Burgers feature-length film, and a new Ghostbusters sequel all are released. Sony desperately wants and, frankly, needs this franchise to work, and all evidence suggests the studio willing to put in the work and faith required for that to happen.
Written by: Looper
