Jared Harris says it was the paycheck that made him say yes to the Spider-Man Universe film.
Morbius star Jared Harris is being frank about why he got involved with Sony’s Spider-Man spinoff and it turns out he did it for the money. Speaking with Britain’s i News (via EW), Harris admits that he took on the role of Dr. Emil Nicholas in the Marvel flop because he just needed to make money — and he had no illusions about what he was getting into.
“I have got a mortgage to pay, you know,” Harris said. “Sometimes you say yes to things because you need to make money.
He also noted that, in his estimation, Morbius would have been improved with more humor.
“I have observed that those types of films do well if you have a sense of humor,” Harris said. “You can’t treat it as though it’s Shakespeare. So, yeah, that movie could have done with a more mischievous sense of humor.”
Morbius, released in 2022, was a notable flop within Sony’s universe of Spider-Man adjacent films. The film, which in addition to Harris, starred Jared Leto as Dr. Michael Morbius and Matt Smith as his rival Milo, was not received well by critics and underperformed at the box office as well, making just $167 million worldwide — not great for a film with a reported $75 million budget. The film even gathered a Golden Raspberry Award nomination for “Worst Director” for filmmaker Daniel Espinosa who earlier this year said that he wasn’t the best person for the job of making Morbius.
“To make a movie through committee, I think, is very hard, and I felt in the end that maybe a different director would have been a better fit,” Espinosa said.
However, while Harris is direct about what he thinks that Morbius could have employed to be better, Madame Web star Emma Roberts blamed “internet culture” for the film she starred in underperforming.
“I personally really loved Madame Web. I really enjoyed the movie. I thought everyone in it was great,” Roberts said. “The director, S.J. Clarkson, I think did an amazing job. She’s the reason I wanted to do that movie. If it wasn’t for internet culture and everything being made into a joke, I think that the reception would’ve been different. And that’s what bums me out about a lot of stuff, even stuff that I’ve done, is people just make such a joke out or everything now.”
But even with both Morbius and Madame Web being misses for Sony, the Spider-Man Universe continues. Kraven the Hunter is set to open in theaters in December 13.
