By Josh Reilly B. and Julie Catherine
The latest film in Sony’s Marvel universe, Morbius, finally opened in theaters this week after a two year delay. The emergence of COVID-19 meant that the film was pulled from its original July 2020 release date, and has subsequently been delayed several times since. Despite being filmed after Morbius, Venom: Let Their Be Carnage and Spider-Man: No Way Home, two other Sony Marvel titles, both released prior the Jared Leto vampire outing.
Despite the delays, Morbius is still of interest to audiences domestically, as shown by the initial numbers of its box office performance. The film, which also stars Matt Smith, Adria Arjona, and Jared Harris, earned $5.4 million in Thursday preview screenings. Three years ago this weekend, Warner Bros.’ Shazam! opened to $5.9 million on Thursday and made $53.5 million on the weekend overall.
The precedent set by other superhero films that debuted to similar numbers suggests a promising opening weekend for Morbius, but Sony remain cautious and are sticking to their $30-40 million opening weekend estimate. However, industry experts are predicting a $40-50 million three day outing, which seems more realistic given the numbers seen so far. Regardless of the final opening weekend total, Morbius’ modest $75 million production budget means that it has a likely prosperous future at the box office in the coming weeks, and could be on course to make the latest Sony Marvel title a financial success.
Audiences seem defiant in their interest in Morbius despite the largely negative reviews. The film currently sits at 15 on Rotten Tomatoes, which is actually an improvement over the first Venom movie, which debuted in 2018 to poor critic reactions but was liked by audiences, explaining its $800 million+ final total.
Check out The HoloFiles’ review of Morbius:
Morbius is in theaters now.