Marvel star Jared Leto credits Marvel with saving movie theaters

Sometimes, you have to kiss the ring no matter how big a star you are. And when your boss is the only [knock on wood] certified, sure-shot hitmaker in town, you best be crediting them with saving movie theaters. And that’s what Jared Leto’s doing in a new profile in Variety.

Long gone are the days of reportedly sending dead pigs and rats and used condoms to Academy Award winners, which, understandably, Leto now denies doing. Leto’s changing his tune as he, once again, plays an impossibly pale-faced supervillain in Morbius. It’s no longer the stuff of depraved method acting one-upmanship. Now he’s part of the team that’s saving the movies.

“If it wasn’t for Marvel films, I don’t even know if theaters would exist,” Leto tells Variety. He’s referring to the stranglehold superhero movies have had over Hollywood over the last decade, a hold so tight there’s barely room for anything else at the multiplex.

Leto isn’t in the traditional MCU, but even the misshapen cinematic universe of Spider-Man villains Sony duct-taped together is boffo B.O. On the gooey back of the two Venom movies, Sony is bringing more Spidey villains to the screen, including the recently announced Kraven The Hunter and, for some reason, Madame Web.

[Sidenote: This writer would love to see the A Serious Man-esque arithmetic Sony performed to decide on a Madame Web movie. Honestly, a movie about the business calculus that landed them on that one sounds more interesting than a Madame Web movie. Though, as we previously reported, “sources have stressed” that this movie might “turn into something else.”]

Look at us, you bring up Madame Web once, and it takes over the whole article. Maybe this is a good idea, after all.

Anyway, back to Leto. The actor, who considers himself “a bit of a snob when it comes to film,” has “gratitude for these movies because they’re keeping cinema alive.” But that doesn’t mean all’s well in comic book town. “It doesn’t seem like there’s room for everyone, and that starts to become a little heartbreaking.” Lucky for Leto, somehow, heartbreak feels good in a place like this.

Leto acknowledges the privilege of playing parts in blockbusters “that are supporting cinema.” Movies like Morbius, Little Things, and House Of Gucci. To this point, he’s right. We say this 100% sincerity: The scene in House Of Gucci where he and Al Pacino search an airport parking lot for their car saved cinema. Truly, Leto is a boofin’ revelation in Gucci.

Thank you for your service, Jared Leto. Morbius opens on April 1.