The Crown’s Matt Smith has entered into final negotiations to join Sony’s ‘Spider-Man’ spin-off project ‘Morbius’.
Smith would join cast members, Jared Leto and Adria Arjona. Daniel Espinosa will take the helm on the pictures. Lost in Space’s Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama have penned the script. Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach will produce with Lucas Foster. Smith’s role is thought to be a major part of the film but as yet details are being kept top secret.
The film will centre on Dr Michael Morbius a living vampire and antihero. In the comics, he was originally a scientist from Greece but due to a debilitating blood disease, he developed an experimental treatment involving vampire bats and electroshocks. Its side effects turned him into a pseudo-vampire (Vampire mutant) who needed to consume blood in order to survive and gained typical vampire characteristics such as an aversion to sunlight, and the powers of flight, enhanced strength, speed, and healing (a healing factor). As well as going up against Spider-man on his arrival to the US, Morbius has also crossed paths with both The Fantastic Four’s Human Torch and The X Men’s Professor X.
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Morbius was created by writer Roy Thomas and artist Gil Kane and first appeared in 1971’s Amazing Spider-Man No. 101, the first issue not written by Spider-Man co-creator Stan Lee.
Smith has recently given up his Crown as Prince Philip in the Netflix series ‘The Crown’ as the series enters its next phase. Smith’s upcoming projects include ‘Mapplethorpe’ in which he plays photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.
