Just when you thought Morbin’ Time couldn’t get better, Michael Keaton has put a cherry on top. At the end of Morbius, 2022’s campy Spider-Man adjacent film, the iconic actor makes a brief, seemingly non-sensical cameo, reprising his role from 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming. The implication was some kind of integration between the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Sony Spider-Verse, or so we believed.
Speaking on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Keaton had a rather surprising answer when asked how much he knew or understood what he was doing in Morbius. “No,” he said. “No idea. None. Zero. And even they couldn’t quite explain it.”
In the film, Keaton’s character randomly shows up in the Morbius world and quickly meets the vampiric title character. He says to him, “I’m not sure how I got here. It has to do with Spider-Man, I think. I’m still figuring this place out but I think a bunch of guys like us should team up to do some good.” To this vague Sinister Six tease, Dr. Michael Morbius replies, “Intriguing.”
It’s pretty clear just from that exchange that no one had any idea what any of this meant. Keaton dove a bit deeper. “[Morbius director Daniel Espinosa] said ‘Let me just kind of tell you’ and I go ‘Okay I really don’t quite know what you’re talking about or even who some of these people are’,” Keaton said. “But it was complicated because they were obviously looking down the road and said ‘Here’s how it going to work. This is what’s going to happen here.’ And I go ‘Okay, I’m in.’”
Keaton may have been “in” but whether or not any of what ended up on screen ends up meaning anything remains to be seen. Madame Web, the subsequent Spider-Man live-action film, certainly didn’t clear anything up, but there’s always Kraven the Hunter which is coming in a few short months. Maybe that film will reference Jared Leto’s Morbius and Keaton’s Vulture connection. Probably not though. Instead, we’re guessing the scene will just exist as possibly the worst superhero end-credits scene to date. One that’s certainly not the fault of Keaton, a very game actor who put his trust in the Morbius team.
Watch Keaton’s full exchange about 33 min into the podcast at this link. He also briefly discussed another doomed cameo of his, in the canceled Batgirl movie. Morbius and its wild end credits scene are currently on Disney+.
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