After nearly two full years of delays, Morbius will finally swoop into cinemas this weekend. While it might not be as highly anticipated as other upcoming superhero movies like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness or Black Adam, Marvel completists won’t want to this miss this one.
Coming after Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Morbius is the latest installment in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, also colloquially called the Sonyverse. Starring Jared Leto in the lead, it’s set to massively expand the franchise, too, with the trailers revealing Michael Keaton’s Vulture will return, which teases a surprising MCU crossover and some multiversal madness of its own.
But before booking a ticket to catch the movie on the big screen, you might be wondering exactly how long the film is. If that’s the case, stay put and you’ll learn everything you need to know about Morbius and its official runtime.
What is Morbius about?
First of all, let’s establish what Morbius is actually about. Similar to the Venom films, this movie likewise takes one of Spider-Man’s most recurring supervillains from the comic books and remodels them into an anti-hero. In this case, it’s the titular Dr. Michael Morbius. Just as in the source material, the character starts out as a brilliant scientist suffering from a rare blood disease.
Driven to desperation in his efforts to cure himself, Morbius attempts a dangerous cure involving bats. It works, but Morbius ends up transforming himself into a vampiric creature with bat-like abilities, including flight, enhanced strength, and an unquenchable thirst for human blood. Unable to control his new monstrous nature, the formerly good doctor will be hunted down by FBI agent Simon Stroud (Tyrese Gibson).
Elsewhere, Matt Smith is on board as Milo, a reimagining of Morbius’ comic book nemesis Loxias Crown, with Jared Harris as his mentor and father figure Nicholas and Adria Arjona as Michael’s fiancée, Martine Bancroft. With director Daniel Espinosa (Life) at the helm, expect Morbius to be an action-packed superhero flick that’s infused with more than a drop of horror.
How long is Morbius?
If that rundown of the movie’s plot got you interested, you might be on the verge of saving a seat in a screening this weekend. But how long do you need to set aside to see the movie? Here’s your answer.
According to the official runtime provided by Sony Pictures, Morbius is 1 hour and 44 minutes long. There was originally some confusion over its length, as initial listings marked it out as lasting for 108 minutes, before updated details altered it to 105 minutes. This has since shrunk down even more to the confirmed 104-minute runtime.
This is par for the course for Sony’s Marvel efforts, as both Venoms were also under two hours. Specifically, Morbius sits in between them in terms of length, as it’s longer than Venom 2‘s slim 97 minutes but not quite as stretched out as the first Venom‘s 112 minutes.
In the wider context of 2022’s superhero movies, it could well end up being the shortest. March’s The Batman, for instance, was a bladder-busting 2 hours and 56 minutes, with the likes of Doctor Strange 2, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever likely clocking in around 2 hours, 30-45 minutes as well.
While a truncated runtime can be a good thing sometimes, as it means there’s no room for sagging pacing or a meandering plot, it’s possible Morbius could’ve used the extra space. Early reactions haven’t been all that positive, to say the least. Still, we’ll be able to make up our own minds about it when Morbius reaches theaters this April 1.