Spidey Spin-Off ‘Morbius’ Sinks Its Teeth Into A So-So 39.1 Million Opening Weekend But Still Snags Top Spot

All comic-book characters are not created equal. At least when it comes to their drawing power at the box office. While Morbius, the latest big-screen origin story to spring from Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (think Venom but with vampire-bat DNA), did manage to open in the top spot over the weekend, its surprisingly soft 39 million debut hardly qualifies it is a blockbuster, no doubt leading to some nervous suits at the studio who had dreamed of creating a menagerie of secondary supervillains and ancillary anti-heroes to challenge Disney’s MCU—or at least become the Pepsi to its Coke. Originally slated for release back in July 2020 before the pandemic delayed its launch, the film which stars Jared Leto as Michael Morbius, a scientist who attempts to cure his own rare blood disease by injecting himself with vampire bat DNA only to see it turn him into a living vampire, was...