We Almost Lived in a Timeline Where ‘Morbius' Was Made by ‘Midsommar' Director Ari Aster
In a recent interview on Semafor's Mixed Signals podcast, Aster, after initially struggling to pronounce the film's name, revealed that Morbius was indeed the project he was invited by Marvel to direct. (Technically, Morbius wasn't part of the MCU; it was part of Sony's web of films adjacent to Spider-Man that didn't actually feature the character.)
On paper, hiring Aster, the director behind A24's aforementioned modern horror classics, sounds promising, given the inherent horror in any vampire film. When Semafor's Max Welltani lamented the missed opportunity, noting how Morbius—as directed by Daniel Espinosa—didn't perform well at the box office (it did OK), Aster responded to the what-if in kind, saying, 'We could've added it to my list.'
"I feel like I shouldn't say. Should I?"@maxwelltani asks director Ari Aster about a rumor that he was asked to do a Marvel movie on Mixed Signals from Semafor Media: pic.twitter.com/TcAmpCttXZ
— Semafor (@semafor) July 18, 2025Famously, the studio took the bait that Morbius' internet infamy meant fans must have a genuine craving for morbin' despite the film's sucky opening weekend box office returns. Regardless, the Jared Leto method-acted film showing a pulse for organic online fanfare resulted in Morbius returning to theaters thanks to all the memes. But while the combination of going viral and an unexpectedly sexy evil Matt Smith might not have been enough for cinematic greatness, well—congratulations, Marvel, you got tricked into releasing a vampire movie.
While Sony would go on to blame the children (and critics) for being wrong about its Spider-Man franchise building sans Peter Parker, Espinosa took Morbius' bad reviews in stride in a 2022 interview.
'Look, I have a lot of self-hatred so I have a lot of criticism of my own work,' Espinosa told Insider. 'I'm always trying to focus on being better. But I am also proud of what I do. There are parts in all of my movies that I'm really proud of.'
In a separate interview with Uproxx, Espinosa was asked how much of Morbius was actually his.
'I think that I work at my best if I get a lot of decision power,' Espinosa said. 'But, in these movies, they're big movies that have a lot of people's interest. It's different processes every time.'
While Espinosa didn't directly respond or implicate any studio executives, he did provide insight into what retrospectively seems to be a narrow escape for Aster regarding his association with Morbius. Bullet, or in this case, wooden stake, dodged.
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