The long-awaited $75 million picture Morbius opened in theaters just days ago, and already it is becoming apparent that this is not a film that will be breaking any records.
Directed by Daniel Espinosa, the movie has received a C+ CinemaScore grading, giving it the second-lowest score ever received by any Marvel-affiliated film – only just beating out Fantastic Four starring Miles Teller. While it’s not uncommon to see negative critic reviews for any film, what is notable about this is that CinemaScore focuses on opinions of fans already interested in the movie and how it has lived up to their expectations. In this case, fans were left dejected.
It’s charting unusually low for a comic book film on Rotten Tomatoes for both fans and critics. As of Sunday morning, it has accumulated about $40 million at the domestic box office, which is decent for the budget, but this charting is unfortunate following Robert Pattinson’s The Batman, whose opening weekend brought in a smashing $134 million in North America. In fact, The Batman celebrated with $56 million on its opening day alone, almost lapping a whole weekend for Morbius.
It seems slightly uncharacteristic for a DC character film to do better than anything concerning Marvel, considering the MCU mania surpassing the world in the past ten years. But then again, it’s also difficult for any film, even one starring Jared Leto, to compete with the feline figure of Zoë Kravitz.