“Morbius”'s Midcredits Scenes Give It a Complicated Link to the MCU

For most of “Morbius” – the new superhero movie from Sony about the “living vampire” Dr. Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) – there are no references to the Marvel Cinematic Universe or even Spider-Man. But that finally changes during the movie’s two midcredits scenes.

In the first, a wide shot of New York City reveals a hazy and mysterious opening in the sky, much like the one seen in “Spider-Man: No Way Home” when the different multiverses opened up and all converged on that version of Peter Parker. Then, we see the inside of a Manhattan prison where Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton) appears in an empty cell. Toomes was the villain in “Spider-man: Homecoming” and turned into the villain the Vulture.

It seems that when Dr. Strange messed with the multiverse in “No Way Home,” he sent Toomes from the MCU into the universe Morbius (and Venom) find themselves in. A news report tells viewers that Toomes is immediately released from jail because, in this world, he’s committed no crimes.

A second credit scene sheds light on just what Toomes gets up to in this new universe. Morbius drives out to the desert to meet Toomes, who’s somehow found or made a new pair of wings and helmet. Toomes says he doesn’t know how he ended up there, but he assumes it has something to do with Spider-Man. Morbius doesn’t have any reaction to the name Spider-Man, so it’s unclear if he’s familiar with the web slinger or not. But Morbius does agree that they should try to work together.

Whether the scenes are intended to lead into a “Morbius” sequel or a bigger team-up movie is unclear. At the end of the movie, we find out that Morbius’s fellow doctor (and love interest) Martine Bancroft turned into a living vampire as well, which sets her up either as an ally or an enemy for Morbius next time. But as Sony continues to make movies about Spider-Man villains – including the upcoming “Venom 3” and Madame Web movie – it’s possible they have their eyes on a bigger villain team-up film down the line.

And in case you’re wondering why Tom Holland’s Spider-Man doesn’t drop down from a building and take care of Morbius way earlier in the film, it’s a little complicated. Marvel originally sold the movie rights to the Spider-Man character and his various nemeses to Sony, which is how we got the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield outings as Peter Parker. But when the latter set of movies didn’t do as well as the studio wanted, and Marvel’s own in-house movies (the ones starring all the Avengers) became the most popular films in the world, Sony and Marvel came to an agreement to have Spider-Man come into the MCU. Sony kept the rights to all the “Spider-Man” villains, which is why they’ve made movies about Venom and Morbius. To explain the separation, they’ve decided to make the Sony movies their own universe – but whether Garfield or Maguire’s Spider-Man would be Spidey in this universe is unclear.