Sony has been announcing the names of the actors who make up the supporting cast in their Marvel Comics adaptation MORBIUS (a.k.a. MORBIUS THE LIVING VAMPIRE) without providing any details on the characters these actors will be playing. When the casting of Matt Smith, Jared Harris, and Tyrese Gibson was confirmed, we had to say that each of them were taking on unspecified roles.
Well, now The Hollywood Reporter has spilled the beans and given some details on who those three will be playing.
But before we dig into that, let's revisit the roles we already knew about. Jared Leto plays the title character, who was created by writer Roy Thomas and artist Gil Kane in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man #101 in 1971. He is
Dr. Michael Morbius, a scientist who suffered from a rare blood disease and attempted to cure himself to disastrous results. Instead of being cured, he became afflicted with a condition that was a form of vampirism — the thirst for blood, along with fangs and super strength.
Adria Arjona is playing Morbius's fiancee Martine Bancroft, who
could be said to be accidentally responsible for Morbius’ transformation into a vampire-like creature, as it’s the human Morbius’ love for fiancee Martine that drives him to experiment on himself.
Now here's what THR found out: Jared Harris is playing Morbius's mentor, and Gibson's character is "an FBI agent trying to hunt down the living vampire."
The biggest reveal here is that former Doctor Who star Matt Smith is playing the film's villain, a man named Loxias Crown. As ThatHashtagShow reported,
Crown suffers from the same rare blood disease as his good friend Morbius. Like Morbius, Loxias will be transformed by the serum that Moribus developed to cure them and the film’s main conflict will center on Morbius trying to stop the killing machine Loxias has become while also fighting off his own blood lust.
This Loxias Crown guy doesn't exactly exist in the comic book source material, but there was a vampiric mutant called Crown (a.k.a. Hunger), who was created by writer Howard Mackie and artist John Romita Jr. in Spider-Man #76, published in 1997.
Daniel Espinosa is directing MORBIUS from a screenplay by Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama. Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach, and Lucas Foster are producing the film, with Palak Patel overseeing the project for the studio.
Currently filming in London, MORBIUS is heading toward a July 31, 2020 release.