Marvel Only Considered Black Writers For The Blade Reboot To Focus On Diversity

We got our first major news on the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Blade reboot since Mahershala Ali was announced to be starring as the Daywalker back in the summer of 2019, when Watchmen writer Stacey Osei-Kuffour was hired to tackle the script. This marks her first feature film screenplay, although she’s garnered plenty of acclaim on the small screen with the likes of HBO’s comic book adaptation, Amazon’s Hunters and comedy thriller series Run, while she also picked up an Emmy nomination for Hulu’s PEN15.

Kevin Feige promised that big updates were coming soon for the project, and now that a writer is in place, the focus will shift towards finding a suitable director. The news detailing Osei-Kuffour’s involvement came with the additional information that Ali has been heavily involved in the creative process, and it took a six-month search before he and Feige settled on a solid candidate to pen the script.

Not only that, but the report also revealed that only black writers were under consideration for Blade, a criteria that will presumably extend to whoever ends up in the director’s chair, too.

“Only black writers were seriously considered, a reflection of Marvel’s focus on diversity and making representation a key factor, especially when tackling nonwhite characters.”

With the obvious exception of Wesley Snipes, the majority of the creative team behind the original Blade trilogy were white, with David S. Goyer scripting all three pics, and directing Trinity himself after Stephen Norrington and Guillermo del Toro helmed the first two installments. However, the search for black talent to steer the reboot would indicate that Marvel are keen to broaden their horizons in terms of diversity, particularly in movies where the main character or characters aren’t white.

There’s no news yet on who could end up stepping behind the camera on Blade, but The Old Guard‘s Gina Prince-Blythewood has proven her action chops, while Rick Famuyiwa is popular with the Disney hierarchy as is Black is King‘s Blitz Bazawule. In any case, surely we won’t be waiting much longer to find out.