The first trailer for the upcoming Sony movie Morbius is now here and one particular shot has folks buzzing. The moment in question shows the titular character, played by Jared Leto, walking down an alley and to the right of the frame, you see a poster of Spider-Man with “Murderer” spray-painted on it.
That’s not the interesting part, though. Many have made the astute observation that the image of the wall-crawler appears to come from Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy and not the MCU, of which Morbius is now a part of. It could also come from the PS4 game, Spider-Man, which does feature an unlockable suit from the Raimi trilogy. Either way, this observation is causing a mixture of confusion and outrage from the internet.
so morbius is in the raimiverse? WHAT. https://t.co/fn1zwbFi8C
— jeremy (@jeremylovesyall) January 12, 2020
Oh my god, leaked Morbius image of a spider-man graffiti labelled murder pic.twitter.com/4jvTX48Xj6
— Azreal (@Cinematicmagic6) January 12, 2020
Did they really just…#morbius pic.twitter.com/9JoulQleHn
— Andrew 🕸️💭 (@andyppi) January 12, 2020
https://twitter.com/HKmatias/status/1216495351030566918?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1216495351030566918&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcomicbook.com%2Fmarvel%2F2020%2F01%2F12%2Fmorbius-spider-man-picture-fan-reactions%2F
https://twitter.com/SpecSpiderKen/status/1216498096487661568
Broke: morbius is MCU Canon
woke: morbius is fUCKING RAIMI CANON https://t.co/plzdQXNDGj— Groo (@groocmx) January 12, 2020
But didn't they announce Morbius would take place during the MCU??? Does this make the Raimi Suit canon?!?? SO MANY QUESTIONS!!! pic.twitter.com/x5ksfSSBnh
— The Falcon and The Winter Spider. (@I_am_SpiderCop) January 12, 2020
That doesn't mean anything. It's probably changed due to rights issues.
Tom Holland Spider-Man is bridging between Sony and the MCU.
— The Moonlight Warrior 🌙 (@BlackMajikMan90) January 12, 2020
Sony like always doing great 😂😂😂, I hate you 😂🤦🤦🤦
If we are beginning like this, I can't get any hopes for Morbius 😂 pic.twitter.com/RyLs7Yx5dV
— Ale | Waito 🎨 (@WaitoChan) January 12, 2020
Now. there could be a couple of explanations behind this decision. One, they just couldn’t use an image from the MCU because while they were filming Morbius, Sony hadn’t yet renewed their deal with Marvel Studios. Or, it could just be an Easter Egg for fans of the Raimi-verse or the video game. Or, neither and Sony is just lazy and went with a standard stock photo of the character without thinking about which iteration of Spider-Man it was. Won’t someone think about continuity?
Honestly, I doubt they didn’t know, but remember, fans did throw a tantrum when Jenny Slate’s character pronounces “symbiote” weirdly in Venom. Nothing gets past moviegoers and most won’t hesitate to point out mistakes or oddities within their favorite universes.
Still, this doesn’t seem like a huge deal either way and with the first trailer for Morbius proving to be a hugely promising look at the film, we can’t wait to see more from it.