Details about a series of cut scenes from Morbius reveal how an entire character arc was removed from the film. Morbius was released in 2022 and is still considered among the worst of the Sony Spider-Man movies. Despite the film’s poor reaction, Sony’s franchise is set to continue with two upcoming Spider-Man movies, Venom: The Last Dance and Kraven the Hunter with both Marvel movies releasing in 2024. In the years since Morbius’ release, more has been revealed about the fractured production of the project to help explain its low quality.
One such reveal comes from CBR and actor Tyrese Gibson, the latter of whom opened up to the former about his cut scenes from Morbius. Gibson played Simon Stroud in the movie, sporting a metal, bionic arm in one of the film’s early trailers. However, Stroud’s bionic arm was not featured in Morbius’ final cut, and his role was significantly shorter than first thought. Since then, Tyrese has opened up about the removed scenes:
If Gibson’s scenes as Stroud had been left in the film, Morbius would have had another entire character arc in the film. As explained by Gibson in the interview with CBR, Stroud was set to gain the bionic arm seen in the film’s early marketing. This led to “a full-on fight, and brawl, with the villain, Matt Smith… and it was crazy.” Arguably one of the biggest criticisms of Morbius is that the film was simply too boring and plodding, with a fight between Stroud and Smith’s Lucien potentially fixing that.
Moreover, keeping Simon Stroud’s scenes in Morbius would have given the character an arc linked to Marvel Comics. In the comics, Stroud becomes a vampire hunter who has an interesting, exciting dynamic with Morbius in various runs. Keeping the beginnings of this arc in Morbius may have made audiences more excited about the future stories that could be told in the Sony Spider-Man Universe. However, Morbius‘ final cut removed the scenes, marking yet another mistake that was made on the disappointing project.
Source: CBR