‘Morbius’ Memes Mangle Mission to Motivate More Money from Moviegoers

June 05, 2022

Jared Leto plays ball in 'Morbius'

Sony’s latest comic book movie Morbius was a critical and commercial flop for the studio, earning a 17 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a paltry $163 million at the box office (which is very low for superhero fare). The film’s only success came online, in the form of memes making fun of the film. Everyone was eager to get in on Morbin’ Time, Jared Leto jokes, and even corporate accounts like KFC were having fun with the viral memes. In fact, the memes were so successful that Sony began thinking about not only a Morbius sequel (please God no) but they re-released the film in 1,037 theaters to capitalize off of its online popularity.

And it went about as well as you’d expect. Apparently, the popularity of memes trashing the film doesn’t translate into box office receipts, which is surprising to literally no one. The Morbius re-release earned a paltry $85,000 on Friday, achieving a rare double-bomb from one movie. So much for those Morbius 2 talks. It’s a bewildering decision in a film jampacked with confounding choices. Did the executives at Sony really think these memes would be enough to drag people to the theaters, especially after a SVOD release? And do they not realize that, while a movie ticket is $15-20, mocking Jared Leto on Twitter is free and eminently more satisfying?

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