'Spider-Man' Spin-Off 'Morbius' Adds Jared Harris

Sony went to Jared...Harris for the upcoming Spider-Man spin-off, Morbius. Jared Harris has been tapped to join the Morbius cast, joining Jared Leto, who has already been cast as the titular anti-hero.

Deadline broke the news that Harris has been cast in Morbius, in which Leto is set to star as Dr. Michael Morbius, a renowned biochemist who attempts to cure a fatal blood disease by injecting himself with a serum derived from bats. Naturally, this turns him into a monster who sometimes fights Spider-Man and sometimes fights evil. Harris' role is being kept under wraps.

This will be Harris' first major big-screen role since 2016's Allied. The British actor has recently been working in acclaimed TV series like The Expanse, The Crown, and The Terror, earning several award nominations for his role in the regal Netflix series as King George VI. However, Harris is no stranger to genre films, having appeared in Resident Evil: Apocalypse and The Mortal Instruments. The actor is mostly known for playing sinister villains, the most famous being Moriarty in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. While is role is undisclosed here, it wouldn't be a surprise if Harris were to play the Big Bad to Leto's anti-hero.

Leto's character, Dr. Michael Morbius, was created by writer Roy Thomas and artist Gil Kane and first debuted in the The Amazing Spider-Man #101 in the 1970s. According to the Marvel wiki, Morbius is a Nobel Prize winning biochemist who suffers from "debilitating blood disease and developed an experimental treatment involving vampire bats and electroshocks. Its side effects turned him into a pseudo-vampire who needed to consume blood in order to survive, and gained typical vampire characteristics such as an aversion to sunlight, and the powers of flight, enhanced strength, speed, and healing (a healing factor). His overall appearance changed as well: he gained fangs, his nose flattened to appear more bat-like, and his skin became extremely pale. Additionally, the victims of his bite would turn into living vampires themselves."

Sony is full steam ahead on its Spider-Man spin-off universe, following the unexpected success of last year's Venom. Whether it can strike gold twice with Morbius is up in the air. The film will be directed by Daniel Espinosa from a script by Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama, the showrunners of Netflix's Lost in Space reboot.