Weighed down by bad reviews, ‘Morbius’ opens with $39.1M
Sony Pictures’ Marvel adaptation “Morbius” landed with dismal reviews but still managed to debut with $39.1 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.
That was enough to easily hand “Morbius,” starring Jared Leto as a vampiretransforming biochemist, the top spot at the box office — even though it was an uncharacteristically low debut for a Marvel movie. Sony’s last movie to launch a Marvel character, 2018’s “Venom,” opened in 2018 with double the ticket sales.
But “Morbius” also drew unusually bad reviews for a Marvel release. On Rotten Tomatoes, it sits with easily the worst score for a Marvel film at 17% fresh. “Venom” (30%) wasn’t a hit with critics, either. But given that forecasts had ranged closer to a $50 million opening weekend for “Morbius,” the poor word-of-mouth and worse reviews likely cut into its receipts.
“This is a weak opening by Marvel’s exceptional standard for launching a new superhero series,” said David A. Gross, who runs the consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. “The weekend figure is well below average for a Marvel first episode, and below average compared with a DC Comics new series, as well.”
Still, “Morbius,” delayed several times by the pandemic,
was budgeted somewhat modestly for a comicbook film, costing $75 million to produce. Audiences also gave it a low grade — C+ from CinemaScore — though moviegoers still seemed to like it more than critics. The audience score from Rotten Tomatoes for the Daniel Espinosa-directed film is 69% fresh.
Overseas, “Morbius” grossed $44.9 million over the weekend, for an $84
million global haul.
Still, it will be hard for “Morbius” to get anywhere close to Sony’s recent Marvel successes. The last two were box-office hits: “Spider-Man: No Way Home” has grossed nearly $1.9 billion worldwide, while last year’s “Venom 2” took in $502 million globally.
Last week’s top film, the Sandra Bullock-Channing Tatum rom-com adventure “The Lost City,” slid to second place with $14.8 million in its second week. With a two-week total of $54.6 million, “The Lost City” is performing much better than other recent entries in the genre.
Following the Academy Awards, Apple put best picture-winner “CODA” into more than 500 theaters. The film, which debuted on Apple TV+ last August, became the first movie from a streaming service ever to take Hollywood’s top honor. Apple didn’t share ticketsales figures Sunday, making “CODA” the first bestpicture winner without any recorded U.S. box office.