Marvel Studios is renowned as a well-oiled machine, with its production pipeline churning out a steady stream of blockbuster movies and Disney Plus shows. But Blade seems to have thrown a spanner in the works.
Marvel Studios reacquired the rights to the character way back in 2011, though it wasn’t until 2019 that the MCU unveiled its take on the character and confirmed Mahershala Ali as the daywalker. Since then Blade has been in development hell, losing its original director Bassam Tariq, having its production start date repeatedly pushed back, total script rewrites, and will now close out the MCU’s fifth phase in late 2024.
Now we may have yet more trouble. Scooper Caleb Williams (as reposted on the r/MarvelStudiosSpoiler subreddit) claims that The Wonder Years‘ Milan Ray, who had been cast as Zora, is out of the movie and recasting is underway:
MCU fans are predicting yet more chaos to come, and wondering whether Ali will want to play the character for very long:
The argument to just bring Wesley Snipes back is getting more persistent:
Wherefore art thou, Blade?
Is a cancellation looming?
We’ll only start getting hyped once we know the shoot has commenced and we see some pictures of Ali in costume as Blade. The current director is Yann Demange with Michael Starrbury on script duties and it’s thought it’ll go before the cameras in mid-2023. Until then, it’s looking like this particular MCU adventure is cursed.
Blade will (theoretically) release on Sep. 6, 2024.
