Marvel fans are perhaps a more patient bunch than they are usually given credit for. For instance, everyone’s been A-OK with projects like the Fantastic Four reboot and Avengers 5 and even Deadpool 3 taking so long to materialize as the fandom understands these are important ones for the studio to get right. One everyone is sick and tired of waiting for, though? Blade.
In dispiriting but not entirely unexpected news, the upcoming relaunch of the vampire hunter’s franchise has taken yet another tumble as director Yann Demange has been announced to have exited the project. For context, Demange was the second filmmaker to be attached to the picture after Bassam Tariq walked away due to creative differences in September 2022.
All told, that makes two directors and six screenwriters (Staci Osei-Kuffour, Michael Starrbury, Beau DeMayo, Nic Pizzolatto, Michael Green, and Eric Pearson) attached to the same project over a period of five years — Mahershala Ali was revealed to be starring in a Blade reboot at Comic-Con 2019.
With all this upheaval, it seems certain Blade isn’t going to make its intended Nov. 7, 2025 release date. And Marvel fans are starting to tear their hair out over why the studio can’t figure out how to make a movie about a guy who dusts vampires while looking cool doing it.
This isn’t rocket science, Marvel!
Really, the fans are pretty easy to please with this one.
Someone’s even supplied Marvel with a helpful plot breakdown.
Comic book writer Andy Diggle has even offered their two cents:
Marvel does know there’s already a whole Blade trilogy out there, right?
Guys, maybe it’s a bad idea to announce a movie when all you have is a big-name star attached and no creative team or clear direction behind it.
To be fair to Marvel, although folks are using the existence of prior Blade films to prove why it’s easy to make movies about this character, it’s the enduring popularity of Wesley Snipes’ version that’s likely causing so many problems. Marvel has to make sure that Ali’s incarnation can measure up to Snipes, instead of simply settling for being a poor imitation of him.
Even so, just put the Oscar-winning in shades and a trenchcoat and let him whale on the undead and it seems the fans would eat it up like a vampire at a blood rave.