David Dastmalchian Sets Sights on Morbius in the MCU — or a DC Villain Haunting Gotham on Halloween
Exclusive: David Dastmalchian is ready to sink his teeth into the Batman villain of your nightmares.
David Dastmalchian is out here manifesting more monster work. At New York Comic Con, the modern-day creature-feature MVP said he wants to sink his teeth into Morbius for Marvel and, if that does not happen, he has a couple of DC boogeymen in mind. If you know his whole deal — the Lon Chaney obsession, the Polka-Dot Man heartbreak, the gooey Marvel oddball Veb — it all tracks.
The vampire itch
As a kid, Dastmalchian mainlined Marvel comics, loved Spider-Man, and gravitated toward Marvel's moody antiheroes like Blade, Ghost Rider, and Morbius. He also thought DC cooked up the better rogues. He even drew homemade crossover battles: Avengers vs the Legion of Doom, West Coast Avengers vs a bunch of DC weirdos. That childhood mash-up brain never left.
"Since I was a little boy, I always wanted to be a vampire, and I am an actual real vampire, but to play one in a fictional setting that sprung from the pages of a comic book."
Morbius, specifically, speaks to him because the character reads like a big, pulsing metaphor for addiction and the uglier parts of our psychology — anger, self-sabotage, impulses you cannot control. He jokes he is not smart enough to be a doctor, but he can definitely play one. And yes, he really does love vampires.
Which Morbius are we talking about?
Quick nerdy detour: Morbius almost popped up back in 1998's Blade — the original ending teed him up as the villain for Blade II before that idea got scrapped. The character did not actually hit theaters until 2022, when Jared Leto headlined Sony's Morbius, which critics absolutely roasted. Importantly, that movie sits in Sony's Spider-adjacent universe, not the Marvel Cinematic Universe proper.
Dastmalchian already has an MCU credit as Veb, the gelatinous, shape-shifting little chaos agent from Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. He says that job taught him a lot about physical transformation — which is right in his wheelhouse. Veb survives the movie, but multiverses being multiverses, there is a path where he could still play Morbius in a reality that is not Earth-616 (the MCU's mainline continuity).
Prosthetics, tragedy, and that Polka-Dot Man glow-up
He loves disappearing under makeup, calling Lon Chaney a North Star. James Gunn knew that when he cast him as Polka-Dot Man in The Suicide Squad — a design Dastmalchian likens to Elephant Man with Christmas lights threaded through his body. That character's death stung, made worse by the bleak backstory that turned him into the film's secret heart.
For anyone wondering if that closes the door on him in the revamped DCU, Gunn has been clear: actors from pre-DCU projects can come back as entirely new characters. The Suicide Squad is canon to the new DCU, but it doesn't lock Dastmalchian into only one role forever.
On the DC side: Solomon Grundy and Scarecrow
If Morbius does not materialize, Dastmalchian already has a shortlist. Top of it: Solomon Grundy, the mournful swamp-born brute who first shambled onto the page in All-American Comics #61 back in 1944. Grundy is a reanimated corpse thrown into Slaughter Swamp, pure Golden Age spook-show energy, and yes, the guy who became a meme thanks to a Cartoon Network cut of Super Friends where he demands a new pair of pants. Dastmalchian digs the character's deep, Southern Gothic sadness and can picture himself barreling through Gotham on a Halloween night.
He is also into Dr. Jonathan Crane, aka Scarecrow — the weaponized psychology angle fits his interests. For context: Cillian Murphy played him in Batman Begins. My two cents on placement: Grundy feels at home in the brighter, David Corenswet-led DCU. Scarecrow, with his colder dread, screams Elseworlds, the lane where Robert Pattinson's Batman and Colin Farrell's Penguin live. If anyone can straddle both tones, it is this guy.
Other dream gigs
He is realistic about the superhero carousel — he jokes he might never get another shot, then immediately catches himself because, well, never say never. He name-checks Doug Jones' turn as Abe Sapien in Guillermo del Toro's 2004 Hellboy as the kind of elegant creature work he'd love to try himself.
Meanwhile, the actual calendar is packed
Super suits or not, the man is booked:
He is joining Netflix's live-action One Piece as Mr. 3, the wax-wielding villain who can turn people into nightmare candles. Season 2 is aiming for 2026.
He is also playing M. Bison in Legendary's live-action Street Fighter — the franchise's Big Bad and Shadaloo's megalomaniac-in-chief — scheduled for October 16, 2026.
And his horror collaboration with Bryan Fuller, Dust Bunny, had its world premiere at TIFF in September. Add in his part-time talk show hosting and, yeah, he is not exactly sitting around waiting for a bat-signal.
The bottom line
Dastmalchian wants a vampire and has the monster chops to back it up. If Marvel does not bite, DC has at least two grim icons with his name all over them. Either way, the prosthetics department is going to have a great time.