‘Morbius’ release delayed to April

‘Morbius’, starring Jared Leto, has set a new release date of April 1 amid the omicron surge. It had been set to open in theaters on January 28, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

The Sony and Marvel film had already been delayed several times due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In January, Sony announced that the film would move from October 2021 to early 2022.

Morbius stars Leto as Dr Michael Morbius, a scientist who suffered from a rare blood disease and turned himself into a living vampire during an attempt to cure himself.

Adria Arjona, Matt Smith, Tyrese Gibson and Jared Harris also star in the film, which is directed by Daniel Espinosa.

It’s not the first time (or the second, or the third) that ‘Morbius’ has had to postpone its red-carpet premiere. The film was supposed to debut on July 10, 2020, but Covid-19 had other ideas. As the pandemic has raged, ‘Morbius’ has cycled through release dates — at various points it has been scheduled to open on July 31, 2020, then March 19, 2021, then October 8, 2021, and finally moving January 21, 2022, before shifting yet again to the January 28 date that it just vacated.

Omicron is just the latest unexpected twist in a pandemic that just refuses to go away.

In its new release date, ‘Morbius’ will face off against ‘Easter Sunday,’ a comedy with Jimmy O. Yang and Tiffany Haddish, as well as the Chris Pine thriller ‘The Contractor.’

Sony just scored massive box office successes with both ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ and ‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage,’ so it makes sense that it would try to give ‘Morbius’ a longer runway at a time when the public health situation is complicating things.