[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for Venom: Let There Be Carnage.]
A new trailer has arrived for Morbius, the Sony/Marvel joint in which Jared Leto, looking about as recognizable as Jared Leto has ever looked on-screen, plays half-vampire, half-vigilante Michael Morbius. It's fair to assume this film, which was originally set to premiere before Venom: Let There Be Carnage, is set in Sony's Spider-Man Universe—which I will continue to call the SPUMC until Sony has me arrested—the non-MCU Marvel playground the studio is building around Tom Hardy's Venom. But, as we know, the adjacent Marvel universes are in flux. First, the Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer crashed the MCU up against Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy, then the Let There Be Carnage credits scene tossed Tom Hardy into the MCU just as Tom Holland's Peter Parker has his identity revealed to the world, and now there is this new Morbius trailer, filled with hints and nods to...pretty much every on-screen Spider-Man universe there ever has been.
So which universe are we in, exactly? Let's break down the trailer's biggest, most intriguing moments.
Horizon Labs
There's a solid chance that if a comic book movie trailer features a city skyline shot, there's a big fat Easter Egg at the center of it. Here, we see a glowing red for Horizon, a confirmation of Horizon Labs from the comics. Horizon is owned by Max Modell, a scientific genius and leading researcher in the field of Reverbium, a metal created by reverse-engineering Vibranium, the indestructible metal that plays a significant role in the MCU's Captain America and Black Panther movies. First appearing in The Amazing Spider-Man #648 by writer Dan Slott and artist Humberto Ramos, Modell is an important figure in Spider-Man lore. Peter Parker eventually gets hired at Horizon Labs, where he creates a number of his more gadget-y Spider-Man suits the down low.
Oscorp
Another skyline, another Easter Egg, this time a nod to one of Marvel's most consistently villainous companies, Oscorp. The scientific mega-corporation is headed up by Spider-Man archnemesis Norman Osborn, better known as the supervillain Green Goblin and father to Peter Parker's best friend/occasional enemy, Harry Osborn. The Osborn family has appeared in several live-action Spidey adaptations, most notably Willem Dafoe as Norman and James Franco as Harry across from Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker in Raimi's films. It's Dafoe's version of the character who is all but confirmed to appear in Spider-Man: No Way Home, an MCU movie, so the character's company showing up in Morbius, a SPUMC movie, just crosses the wires even further.
Rhino, Black Cat, and The Daily Bugle
Once you recover from the words "vampire murder" being printed on the cover of a print newspaper, there's a ton of intriguing info in this shot. First of all, whatever universe we're in right now, "The Daily Bugle" is, as mentioned, a print newspaper. In the post-credits scene of Spider-Man: Far From Home, it's revealed that the MCU's version of the publication is TheDailyBugle.net, a conspiracy-focused internet vlog hosted by J. Jonah Jameson (JK Simmons).
To further complicate matters, there are the subheadlines at the top of the page. First: "Rhino On the Loose: Zoo Hoax Fools Us All." Of course, an actual rhino could have just escaped from the zoo, but I'm willing to believe with every fiber of my being this is referring to Rhino from The Amazing Spider-Man 2—the second of two Sony films starring Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker—played with unhinged energy across roughly 45 seconds of screentime by Paul Giamatti. Please, the world simply needs more of Paul Giamatti's Rhino.
Next to the Rhino report, you've got this: "Black Cat: Friend or Foe?" Sony has been trying to get a film starring the Marvel character Black Cat, real name Felicia Hardy, off the ground for a long time. Felicity Jones briefly played the role in The Amazing Spider-Man 2—working, of all places, at Oscorp—but that movie tanked the chances of a reprisal into the ground. (Although Jones is still very down to play the character.) Later plans for Gina Prince-Bythewood (The Old Guard) to helm a Black Cat & Silver Sable movie were canceled as well, with Sony instead deciding to split those two characters up into two standalone films. (No recent word on those plans.)
Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man Costume
A truly confounding shot that we've been mulling over for almost an entire year. Morbius, a character that exists in the SPUMC, strides past graffiti of Spider-Man with the word "murderer" scrawled over it—a reference to an MCU storyline kicked off in No Way Home—but also the graffiti depicts the Spidey costume worn by Tobey Maguire.
A Whole Lot of Venom
The latest Morbius trailer has numerous shout-outs to Venom, which is unsurprising considering Marvel's gooiest anti-hero has turned into a bit of a cash cow for Sony. First, Agent Rodriguez (Al Madrigal) and Simon Stroud (Tyrese Gibson), investigating what we can only assume is now a string of Serial Vampire Murders, note that they "haven’t had anything this good since that thing in San Francisco," a shout-out to the events of Venom and possibly also Venom: Let There Be Carnage, both of which take place in The Golden City. Later, at the tail-end of the trailer, Michael Morbius–who apparently loves doing bits as much as he does drinking blood—scares a criminal by pretending to be Venom. This trailer really wants you to know Morbius exists in the same universe as The Lethal Protector, which is totally understandable, until:
Michael Keaton's Vulture
This had already been confirmed, but the new Morbius trailer doubles down on the fact Michael Keaton will reprise the role of Adrian Toomes, a.k.a. Vulture, from Spider-Man: Homecoming. This is pretty much the moment the multiverse wonkery gets especially head-scratching. This latest trailer works double-time to confirm Morbius takes place in the same universe as the Venom films, which is extremely not the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but also that it features a notable villain from a Marvel Cinematic Universe film. (Which was a co-produced feature with Sony, but still.) To recap, Morbius is a movie set within the SPUMC that also has knowledge of both the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield movies and an appearance by a Tom Holland villain.
From where I'm standing, there are three options for an explanation here:
Option 1) The trailer is deceptively cut to build as much hype as possible because it is a piece of marketing, which, fair.
Option 2) There's no real explanation other than "the multiverse!", which is pretty much the foundation comic books were built on, so also fair.
Option 3) Morbius is a hilariously important part of the MCU and Sony's universe-colliding story they're obviously going to be playing out over the course of the next few years—primarily in No Way Home, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania—and the key to understanding it all, the nexus point, is this vampire movie starring Jared Leto that endearingly looks like it opened three months after Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. I suppose we'll find out when Morbius debuts in theaters on January 28, 2022.