Following the conclusion of the 23-movie Infinity Saga that resulted in the highest-grossing film in history, Marvel Studios officially announced their first set of post-Avengers: Endgame projects last night at San Diego Comic-Con. Despite closing the panel by revealing Mahershala Ali will be starring in a Blade reboot, Kevin Feige has since confirmed that the Daywalker won’t be a part of Phase 4.
As well as incorporating television shows into the big screen narrative for the first time thanks to Disney Plus exclusives The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, WandaVision, Loki and Hawkeye, Feige stated that barring any release date changes the current Phase 4 lineup of Black Widow, The Eternals, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Thor: Love and Thunder is set in stone.
“It is the complete Phase Four the way I announced the complete Phase Three five years ago – things can move, things can change as they did if you go back and look at what we talked about five years ago for Phase Three, but we’ve been working on this for quite a while and it’s pretty set. But there are always changes possible.”
That means we won’t see Blade until 2022 at the very earliest, but the President of Marvel Studios nonetheless seems excited to be working with an actor of Ali’s caliber on the project, and decided San Diego was the ideal place to break the news.
“When Mahershala calls, you answer. We’ve been trying to figure out something awesome to do with Blade since we got the rights back a few years ago. The man won a second Academy Award and the first thing he did was come to meet with us which is always very flattering and nice. We pitched this idea of Hall H and he was in.”
There was so much information coming out of the Marvel panel last night that there were several projects Feige barely even had the time to mention, but Phase 5 is already looking to be another solid lineup of MCU movies. Along with Blade, it’s also expected to include Black Panther 2, Captain Marvel 2, the sequel to Spider-Man: Far From Home, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, potentially a third entry in the Ant-Man franchise and perhaps even the Fantastic Four and X-Men. Suffice it to say, the future looks brighter than ever for Marvel.
