Years after Mahershala Ali was announced as the new Blade for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a massive setback saw original director Bassam Tariq depart the project. As the reboot was supposed to have started shooting this month, it goes without saying that this was a huge blow to the machinery that usually hums along over at Marvel Studios.
Well, it appears that this new Blade movie is no longer ice skating uphill, as a new director has been found. THR announced that director Yann Demange is now going to be helming The Daywalker’s big screen return, with an intent to film at some point in 2023. That's also led to some other big news falling into place, which makes this once rocky road a little smoother.
With this news comes some other key Blade details, as the new iteration of the film’s script is now set to be written by Emmy-winner Michael Starrbury. That last detail is particularly important, as Mahershala Ali was mentioned as being “personally involved” in that hire. On top of all of these developments is talk of a "dark and gritty tone" for the movie, which has some thinking that we're headed towards another R-rated Blade film after all.
The official line of “creative differences” allegedly shut Blade down in pre-production, with rumors floating around involving the frustration of Mahershala Ali. So one could see why his input would be so important in the process of redeveloping the project for a better bite at the apple.
Introduced as a vocal cameo in the Eternals’ post-credits sequence, Ali’s Blade has not yet been seen on screen. That may have been a signal that Marvel Studios was building itself a buffer to account for any potential re-casting that may have needed to take place. So far, that insurance policy doesn’t look like it’ll be cashed out any time soon since Mahershala Ali is still on the project, and these new developments sound very promising.
Marvel’s cinematic universe has seen other setbacks and surprises shuffle the deck in phases past. However, this latest round probably seemed like a cataclysmic shift, as pushing back Blade caused a cascade of other MCU release date delays, including the recently-announced Avengers: Secret Wars.
The board has been set yet again, with all of the pieces in place and ready to move comic movie fans into Phases 5 and 6 of Marvel Studios’ latest master plan. As it stands, Blade is now scheduled for a September 6, 2024 release. To see where that falls in the schedule of upcoming Marvel movies, there’s a whole listing that awaits your eager eyes. If you want to watch Wesley Snipes’ classic Blade trilogy, those films are available to stream (at the time of publication) with a Hulu subscription.
