Some Marvel fans have been skating uphill ever since the Mahershala Ali reboot of Blade has been announced. Questions about how this film will fit in a PG-13 context, as well as when we’ll actually get to see it, are all running rampant on the internet, with no answers to be seen just yet. Though that's kind of changed at the moment, as the answer to that second question has seemingly appeared from an official Marvel source. So, does this mean that Blade’s release date accidentally get revealed?
Marvel India posted the rundown of films that are in the Marvel Cinematic Universe pipeline for the next year. We absolutely already knew the dates for some of these films, like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and bringing up the edge of the known 2022 release schedule, The Marvels. However, in the graphic shown below, Marvel India has Blade staked out to open hunting season on all suckheads as of October 7, 2022:
Earlier this year, Marvel Studios gave the world a big MCU clip reel laying out their release slate for the near future. In the calendar that reached as far out as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’s May 5, 2023 premiere, several high profile projects were missing. And as you could guess, Blade was one of them, which isn’t all that surprising when you look at what we’d heard previously about the project’s progress.
Another update from 2021 saw Watchmen writer/story editor Stacy Osei-Kuffour hired to write Blade’s screenplay. But the more pressing piece of information revealed in that update was the fact that the original September 2021 production start date was pushed all the way into July 2022. Should this still be the case, an October 7, 2022 release date, or any release date in 2022 for that matter, feels unlikely. Unless Marvel Studios is taking a quick and low budget approach to their latest blockbuster tentpole.
This just makes us more curious about how or why this Blade release information is out in the open. There’s a possibility that this could be the originally slated date, under the September 2021 production start. So someone may have had outdated information and/or was a little too eager to make headlines, and ran with what they had. Or maybe, just maybe, Blade found a way to get into production only slightly later than scheduled, allowing Mahershala Ali to step into his Daywalker persona as we speak.
At the moment, Marvel Studios hasn’t announced the Blade release date officially, so there’s always the potential this news will be retracted by the studio. But if this announcement is correct, Mahershala Ali’s big MCU debut could happen next October. Either way, the 2022 release schedule will be updated to reflect whatever the official studio news may reflect; so be sure to check back frequently.
