Morbius Flops At Box Office Again - Memes Can't Save Marvel Movie

screenrant.com:

Morbius flops again at the box office after internet memes prompted Sony to re-release the film. The wild success of Venom and its sequel prompted Sony to continue building out its Spider-Man Universe with more titles. Unfortunately 2022’s Morbius came nowhere near doing Venom numbers, grossing just $163 million worldwide.

Morbius of course was originally supposed to come out way back in 2020 but COVID ended up delaying its release for two years. When it finally did arrive, the movie was met with brutal reviews from critics and currently holds just a 17% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Arguably the only place where Morbius has succeeded is in the arena of internet memes, thanks to a cascade of clever jokes riffing on the bomb Marvel film. One particular internet meme, a Power Rangers-inspired parody called “Morbin’ Time,” even caught the eye of star Jared Leto who responded with his own joke video. Sony also responded to the Morbius meme action by announcing a re-release of the flop movie in theaters.

Related: Why Morbius Is Returning To Theaters (Will It Actually Work?)

Unfortunately there’s a big difference between people wanting to make fun of a movie on the internet and folks actually wanting to get back out and see that movie in the theater. Sony indeed learned this lesson over the weekend, as their Morbius re-release grossed just $300,000 on 1,037 screens (via Forbes). The tally placed the film far behind box office winner Top Gun: Maverick, which took in $86 million in its second weekend.

Indeed it’s hard to say exactly what Sony was expecting to accomplish by putting Morbius back into theaters for a second go-around. Perhaps they were hoping to look like good sports by reacting to fans’ memes in a fun manner. Or maybe