Here’s How Mahershala Ali Could Look As The MCU’s Blade

It would be an understatement to say that last night’s Marvel Studios panel at San Diego Comic-Con certainly didn’t disappoint. Kevin Feige and countless stars of the Marvel Cinematic Universe took to the stage to drop bombshell after bombshell, officially confirming the majority of the studio’s plans for Phase 4 on both the big screen and Disney Plus, very nearly breaking the internet in the process.

While the majority of the panel was spent revealing new information, footage and cast members about projects that fans already knew were in development, Feige did manage to keep one huge surprise for the very end with the announcement that two-time Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali would be playing the title character in a reboot of Blade.

Marvel have held the rights to the character since 2011, but many speculated that the studio wouldn’t move forward with a reboot due to the difficulty of translating the vampire hunter’s R-rated exploits to the more family-friendly MCU. Getting someone of Mahershali Ali’s caliber to sign on is both pitch-perfect casting as well as a huge coup for the studio, and now BossLogic has posted fan art showing just how ideal the actor is for Blade:

Although the only information we have about the reboot is who will be playing the title character and a brand new logo, it will be interesting to hear what Wesley Snipes has to say about all of this. After all, the actor has spent years publicly campaigning to play Eric Brooks once again under the MCU banner, and as recently as this year revealed he had been in talks with Marvel Studios:

“All of the main execs and my team, we’ve been discussing for the past two years. Everyone’s enthusiastic about it, everybody gets it. But they got a business to run and they gotta square the things that they gotta figure out before they can get to it, I guess. In the meantime, we got a business to run and our own slate of things to do so… But the next time you see something in the Blade universe, mark my words: what we did before is child’s play compared to what we can do now.”

Snipes also produced the original Blade trilogy and the character is clearly very close to his heart, but Kevin Feige might have just driven a stake right through it by recasting the role with somebody else. However, the action star is only eleven years older than his replacement and the MCU loves a bit of fan service, so don’t rule out a Snipes cameo just yet.