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Sony Pictures

Sony Pictures (LOS ANGELES) — Morbius, the Sony Pictures movie in which Jared Leto plays the vampiric Marvel Comics anti-hero, has become the first movie to get its release date officially bumped in 2021. 

Variety reports the film was supposed to come out March 19, but the studio has bumped it to October 8. 

With theaters throughout the U.S. still shuttered for COVID-19, and with pandemic cases surging in cities like Los Angeles, it’s likely that Morbius won’t be the last movie this year to see its date shifted.

In the movie, the Oscar winning actor plays Michael Morbius, a doctor who’s suffering from a rare blood disease. In order to cure himself, Morbius undergoes a risky experiment, which ends up giving him vampiric abilities.

Created by Roy Thomas and designed by Gil Kane, Morbius first appeared on the pages of Marvel Comics back in 1971, in The Amazing Spider-Man #101.

Morbius, like 2018’s Venom, is a Sony Pictures film set in the Spider-Man universe. It also stars Matt Smith, Adria Arjona, Jared Harris, and Tyrese Gibson.

Leto previously played The Joker in the 2016 DC Comics film Suicide Squad, and will reportedly return in HBO Max’s upcoming “Snyder Cut” of Justice League — which will debut on the small screen in March.

Marvel is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.

By Stephen Iervolino
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