Morbius Release Date Delayed to April 1 Over Omicron Concerns 133q41 Entertainment News

Coming to Indian cinemas in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and English. 5p55m

By Akhil Arora | Updated: 4 January 2022 10:54 IST

Morbius Release Date Delayed to April 1 Over Omicron Concerns

Photo Credit: Jay Maidment/Sony Pictures 2f645

Jared Leto in and as Morbius

Highlights

Morbius release date was going to be January 28
Sony Pictures kicks off Omicron-led movie delays of 2022
In India, RRR was the first film to move due to Omicron

ment

Morbius' release date has been delayed by Sony Pictures. The Jared Leto-led superhero movie will no longer release later this month on January 28, due to concerns around the fast-spreading Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus that has extended the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, Morbius — based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name — has been pushed back to April 1. As a result, Morbius is no longer the first superhero movie of 2022. That honour now (maybe temporarily, depending on Omicron) goes to the Robert Pattinson-led The Batman, slated to release March 4 as of now. But could 2022 be 2020 all over again?

This is the fifth delay for Spider-Man: No Way Home in December 2021 — all in cinemas.

The last of those is especially noteworthy given the new biggest movie to release during the COVID-19 era, but it's also the 12th highest-grossing movie of all time (and the third highest-grossing Hollywood movie of all time in India). That suggests audiences are willing to take risks for movies they really want to watch. Obviously, Morbius doesn't have that kind of buzz surrounding it. Moreover, Omicron is a much bigger threat than it was last month. And Sony Pictures clearly isn't willing to gamble and potentially lose money.

Spider-Man 4 in ‘Active’ Development, Kevin Feige Says

With Morbius getting out of the way, the spotlight will now move onto Uncharted PlayStation video game — led by Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg — currently lined up for February 18.

Locally, the hotly-anticipated period action drama RRR — from Baahubali director S.S. Rajamouli — has already ditched its January 7 release date. RRR is now undated. Meanwhile, the next two major titles, Prabhas-led period romantic drama Radhe Shyam (January 14) and Akshay Kumar-starrer historical action drama Prithviraj (January 21), are holding onto their theatrical release dates for now.

In addition to Leto as Dr. Michael Morbius who gives himself powers after accidentally infecting himself with a form of transgenic vampirism, the Morbius movie also stars Matt Smith as Morbius' friend Loxias Crown who suffers from the same blood disease as Morbius, Adria Arjona as Morbius' scientist fiancée Martine Bancroft, Jared Harris as Morbius' professor mentor, Al Madrigal as an FBI agent hunting Morbius, Tyrese Gibson as a superpowered FBI agent also hunting Morbius who has a “hi-tech weapons-grade arm”, and Michael Keaton returning as Adrian Toomes/ Vulture from Spider-Man: Homecoming. Yes, Morbius is part of Sony's Spider-Man Universe alongside the Venom movies.

Morbius is now slated to release April 1 in cinemas worldwide. In India, Morbius will be available in English, Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu.

Is Red Notice more (or less) than the sum of its leads: Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, and Gal Gadot? We discuss this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.

Morbius 50333d

Release Date 1 April 2022
Language English
Genre Action, Adventure, Drama, Superhero
Cast
Jared Leto, Matt Smith, Adria Arjona, Jared Harris, Al Madrigal, Tyrese Gibson
Director
Daniel Espinosa
Producer
Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach, Lucas Foster

Comments

For the latest reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.