Sony’s decision to re-release Morbius off the back of memes poking fun at the film has unsurprisingly backfired.
Jared Leto’s film was re-released in 1,037 theatres across the United States, earning just $85,000 ($AUD 117,000, £68,000) on Friday, and $280,000 ($388,000, £224,000) over the weekend, bringing the total earnings from $73.3 million ($AUD 101.7 million, £58.7 million) to $73.6 million ($AUD 102.1 million, £58.9 million), according to Forbes.
Despite having a solid opening box-office weekend, the film was initially released to overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics who labelled the film ‘messy’ and ‘confusing’.
As with any flop, the internet has been having a field day with memes and jokes at the film’s expense.
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But the jokes got to the point that the film began to trend again across social media, two months after its release.
The trend dominating all timelines was the fake Morbius catchphrase conjured up by the internet: “It’s Morbin’ Time.”
The catchphrase is a twist of The Power Ranger’s iconic catchphrase 'It’s morphin’ time' and has spun off into many variations of the meme and phrase.
Other versions include ‘I’m beginning to Morb’ while creators have edited Morbius and his signature catchphrase into other films and television series such as Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Better Call Saul.
It really is nuts how memes are created.
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The memes and trends have led to fans ironically calling the film one of the greatest of all time, a tongue in cheek attempt at poking fun at how poorly the film was perceived.
However, Sony seemingly took the film trending again as a window to have another crack at releasing the movie to try capitalising on the trend.
Which has resulted in an incredibly ‘boomer’ move by Sony, falling to understand how memes work.
The film earned an average of $270 ($AUD 374, £216) per theatre, essentially rendering the re-release a massive failure.
Perhaps in an attempt to seem like he was in on the meme, the film’s star Jared Leto contributed to the meme as well.
Morbius himself posted a short video of himself pretending to read a script while trying not to give away what the script is for.
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When the camera zooms in on the papers the title reads ‘Morbis 2: It’s Morbin’ Time’, as he attempts to get in on the joke.
However, it feels like once the man himself tries to be a part of it all, it essentially means the meme has reached its lifespan.
Everyone Morbed too hard and got the movie back in theatres, and it went exactly as expected. The perfect ending to the weirdest meme.
Topics: Jared Leto, Marvel, Sony, TV and Film
Jayden Collins