Michael Keaton’s Confusion Over His Spider-Man Role Is A Problem

Warning: Spoilers ahead for Venom: Let There Be Carnage‘s credits scene!

Michael Keaton’s confusion about how his Spider-Man: Homecoming role exists in both the MCU and Sony Pictures’ new movie Morbius signals a serious problem. Keaton’s first appearance in this tangled web of Spider-Man content was in Marvel Studios’ Homecoming, in which he plays the villain Vulture, alias Adrian Toomes, a salvager, turned black-market arms dealer. Now, Keaton has confirmed that he’s set to reprise the role in Morbius, which is set within the Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters (SPUMC). The new film centers on a different Spider-Man villain, Morbius, but Keaton’s presence is significant, even if it’s minor.

The existence of the same Adrian Toomes within two cinematic universes could be the answer to a question that’s been on fans’ minds since Sony’s Venom, starring Tom Hardy, came out in 2018: are the characters that Sony is developing in the SPUMC ever going to cross into MCU territory or vice versa? Based on Keaton’s role in Morbius (and the credits scene of Venom: Let There Be Carnage), the simple answer to this question would seem to be yes. But, Keaton himself doesn’t get how it works. In an interview, he admitted that when the makers of Morbius sat him down to try and explain it all, his laughing response was “no idea what you’re talking about.”

Keaton’s personal understanding of the interconnected universes isn’t necessarily crucial, though, as long as he can play the role as directed. The real problem is the filmmakers’ inability to explain the timeline to him. The existence of Adrian Toomes in both the MCU and the SPUMC is only one of many strands that could potentially converge into a massive Spider-Man multiverse, and if the creative team can’t get one of their actors to understand how all the pieces fit together, what hope is there for audiences?

Sony and Marvel have already struggled to maintain continuity when it comes to Spider-Man. With three different live-action iterations of the web-slinger in the past 20 years, plus Sony’s new venture into the world of Spider-Man anti-heroes with Venom and Morbius, trying to fit it all into one storyline could easily turn into a headache-inducing mess. This is why the conventional wisdom has been to regard each franchise as self-contained. Thus, it’s no wonder that Keaton doesn’t understand how his character can be in two cinematic universes at once. It’s never worked like that before.

With the studios now blurring the delicate line between the MCU and the SPUMC, Keaton’s confusion at this early stage could spell confusion for fans, too. A crossover in which MCU characters can hop into the world that Venom introduced isn’t impossible since the SPUMC hasn’t yet contradicted the MCU timeline. But it’s unprecedented, and that means future films will have their work cut out for them easing fans into the multiverse. If Keaton is the first guinea pig in this endeavor, the disconnect between the way things were explained to him and the way he understands them is not a promising result. In short, the filmmakers at Sony and Marvel may not have made this MCU/SPUMC overlap as clear and smooth as they thought. With the next Spider-Man: Homecoming sequel hitting theaters in December of 2021 and Morbius quickly following in January of 2022, they’d better hope that fans fare better than Michael Keaton.

About The Author