Just when you thought it was safe to go back into social media, #MorbiusSweep has made a remarkable comeback and there’s no silver bullet to get rid of it.
Morbius utterly failed to attract any interest from critics or the sheer majority of audiences, but new life was ushered into the film by waves of ironic appreciation and post-ironic memes under the title of #MorbiusSweep.
The memes started off fairly simple, with jokes about it grossing several “morbillion” dollars, but quickly evolved past that to hyperactive praise for Jared Leto, and fake quotes from Martin Scorsese praising it as “true cinema”. The latter of that even resulted in one of the film’s stars being hoodwinked.
But now, many weeks on from the initial burst of memes, it has somehow returned. Thanks in part to Sony themselves leaning into the meme for the digital release with #MomsForMorbius.
But let’s indulge ourselves in the second wave of the sweep.
Frankly, the movie’s saving grave is undoubtedly the performance of Matt Smith as Milo. A scene of him dancing shirtless after becoming a Dracula in particular has piqued the internet’s interest in such a profound way.
Scorsese-posting has not decreased either, and get ready to keep seeing this particular meme for the remainder of your mortal existence.
People still aren’t over the infamous universe-breaking post-credits sequence, with Michael Keaton’s voice starring on a random stunt double’s body. Whether or not this is the lamest attempt by Sony to jumpstart a Sinister Six film is very much still up in the air.
Sony will be forced to live in the fresh mortal Hell they’ve created for themselves with releasing Morbius, with nearly every post on the Sony Pictures Twitter account getting hardcore Morbed.
But what have we learnt from Morbius? More importantly, what has Sony learnt? Has the frequent attempts to kickstart their own cinematic universe actually led to anything worthwhile? Considering the poor box office performance, it’s hard to see Jared Leto doing more vampire shenanigans in a sequel.
But, hardcore Morbheads can live in pure hope, with the glimmering irony proving a purpose to an otherwise total dud of a movie.
