Matt Smith looks set to follow in the footsteps of Tom Hardy by starring in a Spider-Man spin-off movie.
While Tom played a shape-shifting symbiote in last year’s Venom, Variety reports the Doctor Who star could have a “major role” in the upcoming Morbius, which stars Jared Leto as the eponymous “living vampire.”
Introduced as a foe for Spider-Man in 1971, Morbius is a scientifically altered human with vampire-like traits who, like Venom, has been both villain and antihero over the years. Having tried to cure himself of a disease, he ended up instead with super-strength, fangs, claws, and a thirst for blood, but over time, managed to get some degree of control over himself and fight evil instead of perpetuating it.
Both Morbius and Venom began life in the Spider-Man comics, which Sony bought the rights to in 1999, long before the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) got going. Since then, Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland have played the famous webslinger, with Sony now branching out into other Spider-Man characters.
Which leaves us wondering just which one Matt will play. And we’re not alone: Movieweb claims he could be portraying Dr. Emil Nikos, a lab assistant who becomes one of Morbius’ first victims, while Comic Book previously reported the movie’s villain may be a character called Loxias Crown.
It won’t be the first time Matt has faced off against vampires, of course. Okay, so technically they turned out to be vampire fish from space, but still. We’re just not sure a sonic screwdriver can get him out of this one.
Morbius doesn’t have an official release date yet, but 2020 seems likely, after we’ve seen Matt in Robert Mapplethorpe biopic Mapplethorpe, Charlie Manson drama Charlie Says, and in a hotly anticipated but undisclosed role in Star Wars IX.
Are you excited to see Matt tackle a superhero movie?
