Sony’s newest movie in its Spider-Verse is here with Jared Leto’s Morbius and things are… not looking that great with the new film. Morbius did open at number one at the domestic box office, bringing in $39 million, which isn’t terrible all things considered, but it’s certainly no blockbuster and the movie is being savaged by critics. Having said that, director Daniel Espinosa is taking the movie’s poor reviews in stride.
With only a 17% score on Rotten Tomatoes, most critics really don’t like Morbius very much. Speaking with Insider, Daniel Espinosa admits that he’s no stranger to strangers telling him what’s wrong with his movies. It’s happened to him even with his smaller productions, so he’s used to being told what he did wrong. Espinosa explains…
When I did my first feature it was a small movie called ‘Babylon Disease.’ I remember one day going home on the subway and I had a few drinks so I was a bit drunk. Someone nudged me on the train and said, ‘I have to tell you what's wrong with the second scene in your feature,’ and I was like, ‘Well, okay.’
I’m not sure you can make it to the world of directing feature films without gaining a pretty thick skin. Very few movies are truly universally loved so even if most people thought Morbius was great, there would be some talking about what was wrong with it.
Critical response and box office response are very different things more often than not. It’s far from uncommon for movies that critics don’t seem to like to still make a lot of money. It’s unlikely that the lack of critical praise is the reason Morbius had a luke warm opening. There are numerous other factors including a significant delay brought on by a global pandemic,
And for what it’s worth Daniel Espinosa doesn’t even need critics pointing out what’s wrong with his work, as the director admits that he can be pretty hard on his own films, though he’s made some solid projects that people . He knows he can improve and potentially sees that his work has problems, but he is ultimately proud of the work he does. Espinosa continues...
The point I'm making is that it's a strange thing to make something that is so public. Look, I have a lot of self-hatred so I have a lot of criticism of my own work. 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.
Few movies are seen as universally great and just as few are universally bad. Even if Morbius isn’t a great movie, it may still have elements worthy of praise. It may just be that not everybody will find those praise worthy moments in theatres.
