Jared Leto to Star in Sony’s Morbius the Living Vampire Movie

According to Heat Vision, Oscar-winner Jared Leto (Suicide Squad, Blade Runner 2049, Dallas Buyers Club) is becoming the latest actor to play the field with both Marvel and DC movies by signing on with Sony to star in a Morbius the Living Vampire movie. Daniel Espinosa (Life, Safe House) will direct the film from a script by Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama (Netflix’s Lost in Space), based on the Marvel Comics character created by writer Roy Thomas and artist Gil Kane who first appeared in 1971’s “Amazing Spider-Man” #101.

Originally Dr. Michael Morbius, the scientist character tried to cure his rare blood disease only to become afflicted with a form of vampirism that gave him superior strength, fangs and a taste for the red stuff. The character fought Spider-Man several times, though eventually earned several of his own books where he had a more heroic arc. He has an ongoing feud with the character Blade the Vampire Hunter in the comics. Morbius previously appeared on TV in Spider-Man: The Animated Series and Ultimate Spider-Man Vs The Sinister Six, and was originally earmarked to make his film debut in Blade until his cameo was deleted and plans to make him the villain in Blade II scrapped.

Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach will produce the Morbius movie with Lucas Foster, with Sony executive Palak Patel overseeing for the studio. This is one of several Spider-Man spin-off projects in development at Sony, with Venom and animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse already set for release this year. There’s also the recently announced Silk movie, as well as Silver and Black and Nightwatch, the latter of which has Spike Lee interested in directing.

This isn’t Leto’s first flirtation with playing a bloodsucker, as in 2016 when director Josh Boone was publicly courting the actor to star as Lestat in a reboot of Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire. Leto is still expected to return to the DC realm as The Joker in Suicide Squad 2, as well as a solo Joker movie set in the DCEU that is currently in development.

Meanwhile, the Spider-Man: Homecoming sequel Spider-Man: Far From Home is being written by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, with Jon Watts returning as director on the Sony and Marvel film. Scheduled for July 5, 2019, the follow-up will feature Tom Holland’s Peter Parker in his Junior year at Midtown School of Science and Technology following the events of 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War and its summer 2019 sequel, which will also feature Holland as Spider-Man. Michael Keaton’s Vulture will return, while Jake Gyllenhaal has signed to play the main antagonist Mysterio.

Are you excited about a potential Morbius the Living Vampire movie? Which Spider-Man characters would you most like to see hit the silver screen? Let us know in the comments below!

(Photo credit: Getty Images)