The first trailer for Morbius confirms that Sony’s Spider-Verse is indeed crossing over with Disney’s MCU. Ever since Venom was announced, fans have been wondering just how much crossover these two cinematic universes would have and that question initially looked to be settled right out of the gate, with Venom appearing to be set in its own universe where the existence of aliens was a surprise.
But now it seems that in the wake of Disney and Sony getting all buddy-buddy after their tiff last summer, the two universes are set to significantly overlap. Not only will Morbius feature at minimum a poster referencing Spider-Man’s status post-Far From Home, but Michael Keaton will appear as Adrian Toomes/the Vulture from Spider-Man: Homecoming. Beyond what we’ve seen in the trailer though, we’ll also get J.K. Simmons’ J. Jonah Jameson showing up in both the MCU and the Spider-Verse movies.
So, are Sony’s films really taking place in the MCU? Well, here’s where it gets confusing. My thinking is that the answer is yes, with some caveats. The best model for how this is going to work will probably be how the Defenders shows on Netflix ended up slotting into the wider MCU. Despite being launched with much fanfare as a crucial part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, their crossover with it was limited to vaguely referencing big MCU events like the Battle of New York. Going with this tactic will allow certain elements to appear in both franchises without, say, Thor popping up in Venom 3.
But problems will arise when the MCU goes through universe-changing events like Thanos’ snap. You see, there was widespread criticism when the Netflix shows failed to even acknowledge that half of all living beings disappeared. While I don’t think there’s anything of that magnitude scheduled in the next few years, surely Galactus has to happen sometime this decade, right? Similarly, the Spidey-verse can now only go so big without it feeling silly that the Avengers don’t get involved.
I guess we’ll just have to see how satisfying it is for both studios to fudge it as far as these stories taking place in the same universe goes. But so far, at least, it looks like the Morbius trailer has just opened a whole new can of worms by confirming that the film is set in the MCU.
