How Morbius Reshoots Dramatically Changed Its Ending

Morbius might have pushed Sony's Marvel Universe forward by featuring the return of Michael Keaton's Adrian Toomes in its post-credits scene, but the film's critical and box office failure made headlines instead. The Jared Leto-led Spider-Man spin-off earned only $164 million at the box office. However, conversations about a potential sequel grew when Morbius found success thanks to its meme culture. 

As a result of the clever jokes online, Sony Pictures responded by releasing Morbius again in theaters. Despite the re-release, the Spider-Man spin-off once again flopped in theaters.

Now, as uncertainty looms over a potential sequel, new details about the film's scrapped ending have emerged. 

Morbius Changed its Ending via Reshoots 

Morbius' VFX supervisor Joel Behrens sat down with Comicbook.com to talk about how the film's reshoots significantly changed the location and direction of its ending.

In the film, the final battle between Jared Leto's Morbius and Matt Smith's Milo takes place in an underground setting. However, it seems that this wasn't the original plan. 

Behrens first discussed that his team had already done "some work" on the final fight sequence that was originally set to take place in Central Park, "but not an extensive amount:" 

“We had done some work on [the original scene], but not an extensive amount, because there were rumblings that they were thinking about changing the ending. So we had done some dev work and I wouldn’t say a lot of shot work on it. But we had done a little bit of dev work because it was supposed to be initially Central Park, in that field area that you saw.”

Behrens then revealed that Morbius director Daniel Espinosa decided to "go a different direction" with the final battle since it was "a bit more dramatic underground:"

“And they just decided that they wanted to go a different direction with the fight, I think [Daniel Espinosa] thought it was a bit more dramatic underground. So we had found these pictures of some of these under construction, subway tunnels that actually exist in New York. And some that have just been sitting there and never finished. And there was these just gigantic caverns with these four tunnels done at the end that each could fit the size of a subway through them."

The VFX supervisor also explained why the underground setting exhibits a "more dramatic" sequence than the outdoors: 

"So we saw some of these pictures and Daniel really liked the idea of them sort of just punching down through the ground as they fight on this construction building. And finishing the fight where he can take advantage of gathering up all these bats and defeat Milo in a more dramatic sort of fashion than we had in the outdoors.”

Behrens also added that the filmmakers believed that the underground setting showcased a "more intimate, one-on-one affair" between Morbius and Milo: 

“I think they just felt it was better to have a kind of one-on-one state amongst a more interesting environment than sort of a park... It threw a bit of a wrench in us because then we had to build this fully CG environment, all of a sudden, which we went and we did reshoots. They built, I don’t know, maybe a 20 by 20 foot area of the floor with some of the rubble on it and debris. And then the rest was all blue screen. So we had to build pretty much the entire environment from scratch on that one.”

Will Sony Push for a Morbius Sequel?

Morbius' final battle between the titular anti-hero and Matt Smith's Milo was an intense affair and seeing it take place in an underground setting is a better fit. If the scene took place at Central Park, then the intimate fight that director Daniel Espinosa was aiming for would not have worked, considering that it is a public location. 

Morbius' final cut proved that it was a win-win situation for everyone involved since it achieved the intimate aspect while also showing off an impressive sequence. 

Moving ahead, it is unknown if Sony Pictures will eventually give the green light for a potential sequel to happen, especially after the disastrous flop that happened during its re-rerelease. However, it was made clear during the film's post-credits scene that the franchise has a long-term plan involving Spider-Man and his rogue's gallery. 

If Jared Leto's Morbius doesn't return for his own sequel, there's a strong chance that the titular vampire will still appear in a crossover project with the Sinister Six. 

For now, Morbius is available on all major digital platforms.