“It’s Morbin’ Time”: How bad movie Morbius became such a popular meme that it’s coming back to theatres

You may have seen the news that the Marvel movie Morbius is coming back to certain theatres. You might be wondering why a movie that flopped so bad is getting a second chance. But then again—you might be thinking: what the f*ck is Morbius? And why have I seen loose terms like “It’s Morbin’ Time” around online?

Wh… what’s Morbius?

Released in theatres in April, Morbius is a movie “produced by Columbia Pictures in association with Marvel” starring Jared Leto. It’s about a scientist suffering from a rare blood disease whose attempts to cure himself—becoming a “living vampire”.

I haven’t watched the movie myself, for many reasons. One of the reasons is that the trailer didn’t look great at all. Another reason is Jared Leto, a known weirdo who’s done several questionable things. There just wasn’t any appeal for me, and seeing that the movie flopped, it looks like it didn’t appeal to a whole lot of people either. Those who watched it had a lot to say, too.

“…It might be the worst movie you see this year if you decide to waste your money on it… It’s bland. It’s plain oatmeal eaten on a slice of ungarnished toast and washed down with a glass of room temperature water. You won’t be bored, you won’t have fun, you’ll just exist with this movie for 108 minutes. You’ll leave having only wasted your time with a thousand other things you could have done,” wrote film reviewer
Franklin Cota.

Okay, so how is it even coming back to theatres?

Making fun of the movie showed up even before Morbius came out—according to Know Your Meme. On the official Morbius Discord server around February 2022, the word “morb” is associated among the movie’s ironic fandom in that community where users are known as “Morbheads”. It’s also where a lot of the Morbius-related memes began, like Morbius Sweep, Morbius Poster Mashups and It’s Morbin Time.

On 22 March 2022, a Redditor posted an edited image of the Rotten Tomatoes review score, edited to look as if the film exceeded 100 percent. The post received over 4,500 upvotes in two weeks—and it also resulted in the hashtag #MorbiusSweep to trend on Twitter.

A Twitter user also tweeted a Photoshopped image of movie screencap implying that Leto’s character said “It’s Morbin’ time”—a play on the term “it’s morphin’ time” from the Power Rangers. There are also tons of other memes that cropped up based on the fake catchphrase.

And yes, let’s be clear—the lines are not actually said by Morbius in the film. But now the word “Morb” has almost become a household name… for Gen Z-ers, anyway.

“Morb is a catchphrase and slang term that’s mostly used in a nonsensical fashion, but also means to destroy, dominate or win,” wrote Know Your Meme.

The meme caught on so quick that the word has already become a household name—at least for Zoomers. There’s even an Urban Dictionary addition on 30 April where it explains “it’s Morbin’ time” refers to a “famous catchphrase uttered by Morbius at the climax of the highest-grossing film of all time, Morbius“—which is utterly untrue, of course.

All this attention given to one of the biggest movie flops of the year, however, seemed to have given Sony Pictures some hope. Maybe with all this interest, re-releasing Morbius in theatres would make them some more money. The film is headed back to over 1,000 screens across the U.S. starting today, 3 June.

… Did we really meme our way to giving a flop another chance? The answer is… yes. But will people we going to the cinemas to actually watch the movie?

There is a slight possibility that the memes would be powerful enough to make people want to go see Morbius in the theatres—changing the course of history for the film’s reputation. But it would be hilarious to see Morbius flop for the second time.

There isn’t news that Morbius would be rereleasing in Malaysia yet. But will you be watching it?

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