Michael Keaton seems to be the key to unlocking the concept of the superhero multiverse. He’s returning as his version of Batman from the Tim Burton films in this year’s The Flash, which deals with parallel realities and multiple different versions of the Caped Crusader. He’s also appearing as what we presume to be Adrian Toomes, his character from Spider-Man: Homecoming, in Morbius.
Keaton can be spotted again in the final trailer for Jared Leto‘s Living Vampire flick, which gives more morsels to chew on about what the heck the actor is doing in this movie.
“Michael Morbius, you’ve been given a gift,” says Keaton, whose character is wearing a prison jumpsuit. “Time to let go of what you used to be. Discover who you’re meant to be.”
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Morbius stars Leto as the titular antihero, a doctor with a rare blood disorder who ventures out in search of a cure but finds himself turned into a superhuman vampire with an untamable thirst for human blood.
Keaton revealed to Jimmy Kimmel in November that he’s reprising his role of Toomes in… something. Could his appearance in Morbius be that thing?
Those who’ve been following real-world superhero politics already know the story: Sony and Disney’s Marvel Studios have shared custody of Spider-Man, and their child (Tom Holland‘s Peter Parker) essentially spends weekdays with Sony (to star in standalone Spidey movies) and weekends and holidays with Disney (to appear in Avengers blockbusters).
Sony Pictures Michael Keaton pops up in the final trailer for ‘Morbius.’
Meanwhile, Sony is also producing a series of movies based on characters from Spider-Man’s orbit in the comic books — but that won’t actually feature Spider-Man. At first, they were considered completely separate from Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe with Holland and the Avengers, but last year’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Spider-Man: No Way Home cracked open the multiverse.
Fans gleaned in post-credits scenes from both of those movies that Tom Hardy‘s Venom exists in an alternate reality to the MCU. It would appear, by extension, so do the characters in Morbius.
Whether this is some alternate reality iteration of Toomes from the Disney Marvel movies, or he’s the same one, or Keaton is playing someone entirely different, his presence confirms that the Spider-verse is still expanding.
Morbius hits theaters April 1.
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