Morbius runtime longer than Venom 2, shorter than Spider-Man

Last Updated on December 29, 2021

While Sony continues to collaborate with Marvel Studios on the Spider-Man movies, with Spider-Man: No Way Home now in theatres (and having already pulled in a billion dollars after just a week), Sony is also branching off with their own Marvel Comics adaptations that aren’t part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, making movies about characters who first appeared in the pages of Spider-Man comics. So far the live-action “Sony’s Spider-Man Universe”, as they call it, consists of Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage, and next month the vampire movie Morbius will be joining the mix when it reaches theatres on January 28, 2022. With the first theatrical screenings quickly approaching, the folks over at Collider have learned (via Cinemark) that Morbius has a runtime of 108 minutes.

That means Morbius is going to be one of the shorter comic book movies, much shorter than Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s 148 minutes, but it’s still longer than this year’s surprisingly short Venom: Let There Be Carnage. Depending on the length of the end credits, there might be more to Morbius than there was to the first Venom as well, since the end credits on that Venom start rolling just 92 minutes into the film’s 112 minute running time (those end credits were padded out with a mid-credit scene and a preview of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse). Venom: Let There Be Carnage has a total running time of 97 minutes, with the end credits taking up several of those minutes. (But thankfully not 20 of them.)

Aside from the Nicholas Hammond TV movies, which did get some big screen play, every Spider-Man movie has been longer than 108 minutes; the shortest was the first Sam Raimi Spider-Man, with a running time of 121 minutes.

Directed by Daniel Espinosa from a screenplay written by Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama, Morbius has the following synopsis:

One of Marvel’s most compelling and conflicted characters comes to the big screen as Oscar winner Jared Leto transforms into the enigmatic antihero Michael Morbius. Dangerously ill with a rare blood disorder and determined to save others suffering his same fate, Dr. Morbius attempts a desperate gamble. While at first it seems to be a radical success, a darkness inside him is unleashed. Will good override evil – or will Morbius succumb to his mysterious new urges?

Jared Leto plays Morbius and is joined in the cast by Jared Harris as Morbius’ mentor, Tyrese Gibson as “an FBI agent trying to hunt down the living vampire”, Adria Arjona as Morbius’ fiancee Martine Bancroft, and Matt Smith as the villainous Loxias Crown.

The Morbius character was created by writer Roy Thomas and artist Gil Kane in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man #101 back in 1971. Despite not being part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe itself, Morbius will be connected to the recent Spider-Man movies through nods to the events of Spider-Man: Far from Home and an appearance by Michael Keaton as his Spider-Man: Homecoming character Adrian Toomes, a.k.a. The Vulture.

Produced by Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach, and Lucas Foster, the film has been rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, some frightening images, and brief strong language. What do you think about this Morbius runtime?