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.”
