Incredibly, ‘Morbius’ isn’t the only blockbuster vampire origin story to fail spectacularly twice over

The legacy left behind by Morbius is that of ironic appreciation and outright ridicule, after Sony went all-in on the hype for Jared Leto’s debut as the Living Vampire, only to watch it blow up in the studio’s face twice over.

Riding a wave of momentum that was almost entirely generated by memes blasting the movie for being so terrible on every level it was almost endearing, it’s got to rank as one of the worst decisions ever made by an outfit that’s made it a recurring habit to be hoodwinked so convincingly by Morbin Time’ that it sent the critical and commercial disaster out there to die at the box office for a second time.

What makes it even more fascinating is that Morbius wasn’t even the first blockbuster origin story for an iconic vampiric character to tank twice in quick succession, with Dracula Untold being swept under the rug only seven years previously. Luke Evans’ turn as Vlad the Impaler is often beautiful to look at on a visual level, but it’s everything else that lets the fantasy horror down.

Initially designed with sequels in mind, Evans was game to reprise the role moving forward, and an epilogue was even added in reshoots to tie it to the Dark Universe. However, not only did Dracula Untold fail to generate enough interest to warrant a standalone sequel, it was then immediately cast aside as official canon when The Mummy director Alex Kurtzman boarded his Tom Cruise-driven reboot, which then went and cratered spectacularly itself.

Only in Hollywood could two feature-length beginnings for a legendary bloodsucker fail twice in eerily similar circumstances, but history has shown that these sorts of lessons are never truly learned.