With SONY attempting to suck out whatever money they could, like a vampire trying to suck the blood from it’s victim, it appears that they bit off more than they could chew. The re-release of the anti-hero film Morbius, starring Jared Leto, only brought in a tiny amount of extra cash for the studio.
The decision to re-release the film theatrically was due to the popular “It’s Morbin Time” meme that recently became widespread across the internet. The idea of a vampiric Power Ranger is rather humorous. Seeing dollar signs, the studio thought they could capitalize on the recent popularity. But that appears to have backfired.
According to this past weekend’s box office numbers the film played in over 1,000 theaters, only earning $85,000 on Friday, with $280,000 overall. An extremely low intake when compared to other films like Top Gun: Maverick with $25 Million and Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness with $2.5 Million.
Despite SONY’s attempt to cash in on a recent trend it appears that the powers of the internet memes couldn’t bring the film back to life. Some key factors as to why the re-release did so poorly include the recent opening of Top Gun: Maverick, the lack of advertising the film’s return to theaters and the fact that the home video release will be on June 14th.
SONY’s Spider-Man Cinematic Universe seems to be in constant flux and it is unknown what future Morbius might have in it. With films like Kraven the Hunter, Madame Web and El Muerto all in production, only time will tell if their attempts at a cinematic universe can last more than a handful of films. Perhaps they were lucky due to their partnership with Marvel and Disney and the connection to the MCU.
Whatever the future is, we now know that you should never bet on making money from just internet memes. You need to have something behind it for it to gain any traction.
Source: Forbes
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